According to SpaceNews, Astroscale has a packed schedule ahead with about eight missions planned over the next three years, including next year’s ambitious dual operations of removing a OneWeb broadband satellite from low Earth orbit while simultaneously refueling two U.S. Space Force spacecraft in geostationary orbit. The Tokyo-based company recently demonstrated its capability by maneuvering within 15 meters of a Japanese H-2A rocket upper stage during its ADRAS-J mission. With subsidiaries now established in the UK, US, France, and Israel, Astroscale is working with multiple space agencies including JAXA, ESA, and the UK Space Agency. Revenue is currently flowing from these government contracts, and the company is developing missions across all its service verticals: inspection, servicing, and debris removal.
The human scaling problem
Here’s the thing that jumps out from Astroscale COO Chris Blackerby’s comments: their current operations are incredibly human-intensive. For the ADRAS-J mission, they had teams in both the UK and Japan working nearly 24/7 across time zones. Blackerby admits this approach won’t scale when they’re running multiple missions simultaneously. They’re talking about automation and AI, but they’re essentially building the training datasets from scratch through these early missions. The autonomy question is critical – when you’re operating within meters of multi-million dollar assets (or debris that could become catastrophic), you can’t afford latency issues with ground control. But trusting AI with those proximity operations? That’s a massive leap.
The sovereignty efficiency tradeoff
Astroscale’s global subsidiary model is both clever and problematic. They’ve set up separate companies in five allied nations, which Blackerby says wasn’t originally about sovereign capability but about talent acquisition. Now it’s becoming a necessity as nations want their own space servicing capabilities. But he openly admits this is “less efficient” than centralized operations. Basically, they’re building redundant capabilities across multiple countries to satisfy political requirements. That has to be driving up costs significantly, which raises questions about long-term viability. Can they really achieve commercial price points with this distributed model?
The dual-use dilemma
Blackerby doesn’t shy away from the obvious: these capabilities are inherently dual-use. The same technology that lets you inspect and dock with dead satellites for removal could be used for… less friendly purposes. His argument that security precedes sustainability makes sense, but it’s worth noting they’re working directly with military organizations like the U.S. Space Force. The geopolitical implications here are substantial. When you’re developing technology that can approach “non-cooperative objects” in space, you’re operating in a gray area between debris cleanup and space domain awareness. And with nations increasingly concerned about space security, Astroscale’s positioning as “connective tissue” between allies could become strategically important.
The commercial viability question
Right now, Astroscale’s revenue comes from government contracts, which Blackerby acknowledges is necessary to prove capabilities and drive down manufacturing costs. But the big question is when commercial customers will actually pay for these services. Satellite operators are famously cost-conscious, and the business case for life extension or debris removal needs to be crystal clear. The refueling mission for Space Force spacecraft could be a game-changer if successful – proving you can actually dock and transfer propellant to operational satellites. But we’ve seen plenty of space servicing concepts fail to find commercial markets despite technical success. Astroscale’s global expansion and multiple mission types suggest they’re hedging their bets, but the path to profitability beyond government work remains uncertain.
