Japan’s Astroscale’s UK subsidiary has received around $15 million (€17.8m) from the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency to de-orbit a dead OneWeb satellite.

The funding goes into ELSA-M, or End of Life Services mission, and is scheduled for 2026. The new cash comes on top of an €18 million grant which covered the first three phases.

The mission’s Phase Four schedule handles the assembly, integration and testing of an ELSA-M satellite which nis built with a capture mechanism comprising a magnetic docking plate already in place on most of the Eutelsat-owned OneWeb fleet.

OneWeb has more than 600 satellites in low Earth orbit. Astroscale’s UK MD Nick Shave said ELSA-M confirmed that it would remove a OneWeb satellite already in orbit that is no longer in service.

The ELSA-M scheme is potentially capable of handling more than one target satellite, and is designed to cope with satellites up to 800 kgs in size, which ELSA-M would then deorbit.

Other posts by :

1. SES announces €0.25c dividend
2. Russia “blinding and destroying” German satellites
3. Bank: AST, Starlink, Kuiper targeting $200bn market
4. Rivada: Is no news good news?
5. SES celebrates Intelsat acquisition
6. Pakistan halts broadband direct-from satellite
7. India stymies Starlink launch
8. Starlink, AST SpaceMobile race for cellular consumers
9. Trouble ahoy for foreign D2D satellites over India?

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: japan, satellite, Space, UK