BusinessDebris

Astroscale Shares Surge in Market Debut

Image: Astroscale

Astroscale’s IPO proves there’s value in junk stocks—space junk stocks, that is.

The Japanese startup on a mission to clean up debris left in orbit saw its share price balloon during its first day of trading in Tokyo’s growth market on Wednesday. It’s the second Japanese space company to go public this year, after lunar lander company ispace began trading in April.

The IPO: Demand for Astroscale shares far surpassed available supply, pushing the company’s stock to finish the day trading at ¥1,375 ($8.81), far above their IPO price of ¥850 ($5.44).

Optimistic investors believe the company can turn the ever-growing catalog of space junk into solid gold, and government agencies are fueling this vision. 

  • Astroscale has partnered with both JAXA and the UK Space Agency on missions to observe and remove defunct spacecraft from orbit.
  • The company also recently won a Space Force contract to develop an on-orbit refueling vehicle. 

Together these projects have the potential to add $100+M to Astroscale’s balance sheet. 

License and registration: Astroscale plans to keep the orbital highways free from dangerous debris and defunct spacecraft in a couple different ways, including disposing of satellites at the end of their missions, extending how long satellites can operate in orbit, and grappling debris that’s been coasting through space for years (or decades).

The company is preparing to tackle the latter mission after JAXA recently awarded Astroscale a contract for the second phase of an effort to remove a Japanese upper stage rocket body from space. The startup already completed the first phase of the program—its ADRAS-J spacecraft came within a few hundred meters of a spent Japanese rocket this April.

Proof of concept: Governments and companies have broadly bought into the idea of space sustainability, since leaving junk in orbit represents a threat that could derail the promise of a burgeoning (and lucrative) space economy. However, Astroscale’s financial statements show a steep path to profitability. In Q3 2023, the company posted a net income of -¥2.89B(-$18.5M), and there is some skepticism among experts that cleaning up space junk can turn a profit.

“It’s just not cost-feasible,” John Crassidis, professor of aerospace engineering at the University at Buffalo, told Payload. “Do you want to build a multi-million dollar satellite to only take out one or two other satellites or debris objects?”

Related Stories
BusinessEquities

Boeing Starliner Losses Top $2B—And Counting

Years of technological and operational challenges have increased costs to develop Starliner, with Boeing reporting losses almost every year since it began developing the spacecraft in 2014.

BusinessDebrisTechnology

Kayhan Space Beefs Up its Space Traffic Coordination Tool

Kayhan Space merged its two most popular products in a new offering launched today, dubbed the Satcat Product Suite. The new system combines Satcat’s publicly available, real-time space situational awareness data with Pathfinder’s space traffic coordination tools, offering satellite operators a single platform to manage their sats—and avoid running into one another. Same same, but […]

BusinessCivilScience

AVS Secures ESA Study for Dark Matter Probe Platform

Added Value Solutions (AVS) won an ESA contract to advance the design and development of its satellite platform for the ARRAKIHS dark matter astrophysics mission.

BusinessPolicy

Commerce Nominee: Space Data “Fundamental” to US Leadership

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of commerce, committed to supporting the commercial space sector in his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.