British firm set to clear space junk passes security audit

Astroscale UK, the British arm of the Japanese company building spacecraft to clear junk from orbit, has earned an international information security certification as it prepares a planned debris removal mission and a defense program for the UK Ministry of Defence.

The company said on Sept. 30 that it achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification after an independent audit and a 20-month, company-wide effort to put new security policies, processes and oversight in place. The standard sets out how an organization identifies and manages risks to its information, and Astroscale UK says its version also covers newer risks tied to artificial intelligence and outside suppliers.

Astroscale UK says the certification is meant to give customers, government partners and suppliers confidence in how it handles sensitive information on ELSA-M, which the company says will be the world’s first active debris removal mission, meaning a spacecraft sent to capture and remove a dead object from orbit. ELSA-M is set to launch on a Spectrum rocket from German launch company ISAR Aerospace, though Astroscale has not given a date.

The company is also working on Orpheus, a UK Ministry of Defence program that Astroscale says is developing a sovereign British defense capability for servicing satellites in orbit. It gave no further details on what Orpheus will do or when.

“Our missions combine frontier robotics and autonomous rendezvous with exacting operational discipline,” said Nick Shave, managing director of Astroscale UK.

Both programs rely on rendezvous and proximity operations: flying one spacecraft close to another, inspecting it and working with it without a collision. The same skills that let a spacecraft grab a piece of debris could let it inspect or service another satellite, which is why the work draws interest from militaries as well as satellite operators.

Astroscale first tested those skills on ELSA-d, launched in 2021, which demonstrated long- and short-range rendezvous and the magnetic capture of a client spacecraft. In 2024, the company’s ADRAS-J mission approached a discarded Japanese upper-stage rocket body to within 15 meters (49 feet) and inspected it, even though the rocket body was not built to be approached. Astroscale UK built the ground systems for that mission and led its flight dynamics, including planning the close approach maneuvers and handling collision warnings.

Astroscale, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Japan, has also won work with Japan’s space agency JAXA, the U.S. Space Force, the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency and satellite operator Eutelsat.

“Achieving ISO 27001 is tangible evidence that we are building the secure, resilient organisation needed to deliver complex space missions in the UK,” Shave said.