Astroscale Japan selected Germany’s Isar Aerospace to launch its ADRAS-J2 mission—which aims to be the first spacecraft to capture and remove a piece of large orbital debris.
The mission is slated to fly during Japan’s FY2027 (April 2027 to March 2028) on Isar’s Spectrum rocket, from the launcher’s pad at Norway’s Andøya Space spaceport.
ADRAS-J2 builds on the success of its predecessor, ADRAS-J, which demoed autonomous RPO around a non-cooperative object in 2024. The mission photographed a Japanese H-IIA upper stage left in LEO after the 2009 launch of the GOSAT greenhouse-gas monitor.
“ADRAS-J2 is an important step toward demonstrating that debris removal can become a repeatable, commercial service,” an Astroscale spokesperson told Payload via email. “Our goal is to build on the mission’s capabilities and pursue future removal missions with government customers who have a need to responsibly remove large debris from orbit.”
Unfinished business: Unlike some missions that showcase RPO tech with a dummy piece of debris launched just to carry out the demo, ADRAS-J2 will fetch space debris that was never designed for removal:
- ADRAS-J2 will target the same upper stage photographed by the previous RPO mission, which is roughly 11 m long and 4 m in diameter, and weighs about 3 tons.
- ADRAS-J previously inspected the payload attach fitting—the planned capture interface for ADRAS-J2—on that upper stage, confirming no significant damage.
- The spacecraft will then combine Astroscale’s RPO capabilities with its in-house robotic arm tech to remove the non-cooperative upper stage from orbit.
ADRAS-J2 is being developed under Phase II of JAXA’s Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) project. The government initiative seeks to promote a commercial active-debris removal (ADR) market by partnering with private companies to capture and remove Japanese-originated debris objects. The 2024 ADRAS-J mission marked Phase I of the program.
Astroscale’s CRD2 contract is valued at approximately ¥13.2B (~$82M). Neither Astroscale nor Isar disclosed the value of the launch agreement.
Ride pending: Isar has yet to reach orbit. Spectrum’s debut test flight in March 2025 was lost 30 seconds after liftoff, and the company has yet to confirm a new date for the second flight test following a June scrub.
The German launch startup intends to launch Spectrum multiple times for further reliability enhancements before flying ADRAS-J2. Astroscale told Payload that the company was confident that Isar can meet the agreed upon schedule needs, noting that the precise orbital insertion capability offered by Spectrum is important for ADRAS-J2.
ADRAS-J2 is Astroscale’s second Isar mission. Astroscale’s UK subsidiary signed an agreement with Isar in March to launch the ELSA-M in-orbit demonstration mission aiming to capture satellites fitted with magnets to enable their capture. ELSA-M is scheduled to launch during Astroscale’s 2028 fiscal year.
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