Ibadan, 23 July 2024. – Astroscale Ltd (“Astroscale UK”), the UK subsidiary of Astroscale Holdings Inc. (“Astroscale”) has secured EUR 13.95 million (USD 15 million – GBP 11.78 million) from the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency (“ESA”) to support the final phase of the End-of-Life by Astroscale-Multiple (ELSA-M) in-orbit demonstration.
ESA and UKSA released the funding following the contract with Eutelsat OneWeb in the context of the Sunrise Partnership Project, a public-private partnership between ESA and the Eutelsat Group. The Sunrise Partnership Project, part of ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program, aims to develop solutions for future-generation telecommunication satellite missions. Both the ARTES program and Sunrise are supported by the UK Space Agency.
With a tentative launch during the fiscal year ending in April 2026, ELSA-M aims to be the world’s first commercial end-of-life service for prepared satellites. This means satellites that feature technologies such as an interface that will enable docking and removal. This mission improves on the capabilities Astroscale developed and successfully demonstrated with the ELSA-d mission. The ELSA-d mission, launched in 2021, validated Astroscale’s end-of-life technologies, completing unprecedented demonstrations in orbit, including repeated magnetic capture and controlled close-approach rendezvous operations between the two spacecraft in orbit.
However, ELSA-M Phase 4 includes flight model assembly, integration and testing, launch and commissioning, through in-orbit demonstration activities, and full in-house operations of successfully docking, de-orbiting, and releasing the Eutelsat OneWeb client spacecraft. With the mission, Astroscale UK aims to demonstrate its commitment to sustainable space operations and pave the way for the future of space sustainability and satellite servicing.
