‘Space junk’ unicorn backed by Japanese billionaire takes flight from Tokyo

Now a Tokyo-based startup run by a veteran of McKinsey & Co. and Japan’s Ministry of Finance is sending a spacecraft to inspect the debris, a major step in the effort to counter the threats that human-made space junk pose to multibillion-dollar systems being deployed by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others.

A spacecraft from Astroscale Holdings Inc. — which took off aboard an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab USA Inc.’s launch complex in New Zealand on Feb. 19 — will soon attempt the world’s first close-up survey of large orbital debris. 

Once it completes tests to ensure the equipment is working properly after the launch, Astroscale aims to send the vehicle within 100 meters (328 feet) of the upper stage of a rocket left in orbit by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2009, one of many such pieces left in space by countries such as the US, China and Russia.

As part of the Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) mission, the spacecraft will circle the old rocket, measure the rate at which it’s spinning and make other observations — no simple task when the target is about three tons in size, 600 kilometers above Earth and hurtling through space at a speed of eight kilometers a second. 

If ADRAS-J can pull it off, Astroscale will take a major step toward its longer-term goal of deploying junk-removal vehicles, according to founder and Chief Executive Officer Nobu Okada, who started Astroscale in 2013 with $200,000, half his total savings. 

“The space industry has been just a throw-away culture,” he said. “The world needs our services.”

A 50-year-old former IT entrepreneur and strategy consultant, Okada founded Astroscale after attending a conference in Germany where the problem of debris was a hot topic. He set up shop in…