This Singapore startup wants to remove killer litter from space

Red dots represent debris. White dots are satellites. Image: Astroscale

A Singapore-based company is taking the concept of a ‘moon shot’ to a whole new level. Its name, Astroscale, hints at its ambitions: by 2015, the company hopes to send up a rocket with a payload of Pocari Sweat, a Japanese sport beverage, to the moon.

Lunacy? Not quite – the entire space launch is sponsored by Otsuka Pharmaceutical, the company behind the drink, and the money will fund Astroscale’s operations. It’s also a collaborative endeavor: Astrobotic Technology, an American robotics company spun out of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, will run the rover that will deliver the payload onto the lunar surface.

The launch is just a stepping stone towards its grand mission: designing and operating ‘sweeper’ satellites that will remove space debris – consisting of defunct satellites and pieces of spacecraft – from Earth’s orbit. Nobu Okada, the Japanese founder of Astroscale, said his goal is to prevent a catastrophic space collision – depicted in the recent space disaster movie Gravity – that could disrupt the world’s communication systems.

Outsiders in the space race

Astroscale is an outsider in a secretive, buttoned-up space industry, is a bureaucratic collective that has just begun to open up to private companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

Okada was never in the space industry prior to starting this company. After graduating from university with a genetics degree, he held a government job before joining a consulting firm and later an IT company. But despite his ordinary day jobs, he maintained a healthy interest in outer space.

“I was reading science papers while working in government, and I’d been following what’s been happening in the space industry. I have a good network there,” he says.

Making the giant leap towards starting a spacefaring organization, however, requires more than an avid interest – it takes some guts, and a lot of self-convincing.

Okada was reminded of his ambitions by a autographed letter he received from Mohri Mamoru, the first Japanese astronaut, while on a visit to NASA when he was 15.

He also looks up to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, another outsider in the industry, for inspiration. In fact, an encounter with a SpaceX employee at the Global Space Technology Convention in Singapore cemented his decision.

“He told me that people who come from the outside should be the ones to start a space company,” said Okada.

So, with his concerns about space debris nagging at him, he decided to start his own business last year, pumping in S$280,000 (US$221,000) of his own capital.

Okada at the Kennedy Space Center in Houston.

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