Debris dilemma: Japan's mission makes progress in orbital clean-up efforts – Interesting Engineering

Astroscale’s ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan) mission achieved a successful rendezvous with a second-stage H-2A rocket, nearing to within several hundred kilometers of the drifting object. The spacecraft is now preparing to conduct a detailed examination of the aging rocket, orbiting around it and capturing images.

The rocket’s upper stage, launched in 2009, lacks its own GPS data, making precise location determination for a rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) mission challenging, Astroscale Japan said in a press release.