Approximately 8,000 metric tons of space junk now in orbit includes nearly one million individual pieces of debris that are potentially lethal to satellites, space missions, commercial space services, and human lives. With companies like SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb launching mega constellations, this number will continue to increase over the coming years.
Now, imagine a scenario in the future, where the number of satellites and orbital debris is so high that collisions occur, each one generating more and more space debris and, in turn, cascading collisions. That will be the occurrence of Kessler Syndrome, a term inspired by the 1978 paper, “Collision frequency of artificial satellites: The creation of a debris belt,” in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Written by Donald Kessler, a former NASA scientist, the paper devised equations to model the distribution of known objects in orbit, predicting how likely they were to collide and create orbital debris over time. According to some space experts, it’s a question of when, not if, the Kessler Syndrome becomes a reality.
In recent years, therefore, the proliferation of space debris and related issues of space safety and sustainability have gained new global attention leading to increased efforts for space-debris mitigation and space-junk removal by governments, industry, and academia.
The U.S. Senate passed the Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act in October 2023. The act aims to establish a demonstration program to address the growing amount of debris in Earth orbit. It directs NASA to fund a debris removal program and enables the agency to work with commercial companies, to develop and deploy the engineering technology that will be crucial to addressing the challenges posed by orbital debris.
The bill charges the Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce, NASA, the National Space Council, and the FCC with prioritizing debris of greatest risk, demonstrating removal of debris to incentivize removal technologies, commence a multi-agency update to existing debris standards as well as encourage the development of practices for coordinating space traffic to avoid collisions.
According to ResearchAndMarkets’ Space Debris Removal Global Market Report 2024, the space debris removal market is expected to see exponential growth in the next few years. It will grow to $0.4 billion in 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.8 percent.
The anticipated growth, per the report, in the forecast period can be attributed to increased satellite deployment, growing awareness of the need for space sustainability, the proliferation of satellite mega constellations, an uptick in satellite launches, and expanded space exploration programs.
This renewed focus on space sustainability has also led to the emergence of several new space startups that are thinking out of the box to find novel technology solutions to tackle space junk. Let’s take a look at seven such startups.
1. ASTROSCALE
Year Founded: 2013
Location: Tokyo, Japan
CEO: Nobu Okada
Japanese startup Astroscale is a public orbital debris removal company developing satellite end-of-life and active debris removal services to mitigate the growing and hazardous buildup of debris in space. The company delivers a variety of innovative and scalable on-orbit servicing solutions, including life extension, in-situ space situational awareness, end-of-life, and active debris removal. Astroscale’s spacecraft have been selected for pioneering missions with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the U.S. Space Force, the European Space Agency, the U.K. Space Agency, and Eutelsat OneWeb. In December 2024, its commercial debris inspection demonstration satellite, Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J), successfully approached a large piece of space debris — a rocket upper stage — to approximately 15 meters. This is the closest approach ever achieved by a commercial company to space debris through Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO). While ADRAS-J did not reach its intended final distance, the mission demonstrated the robustness of its safety measures during simulated capture operations.
2. CLEARSPACE
Year Founded: 2018
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
CEO: Luc Piguet
ClearSpace, a spin-off of EPFL, offers debris cleanup by tracking the failed satellites using a set of sensors, radar technologies, and a telescope. In the past, abandoned and damaged satellites in orbit have been manually captured and repaired through astronaut-led missions using the space shuttle. ClearSpace is now building the technology to tend to space debris autonomously. The goal is to capture the satellites, to either remove them from orbit, or to refuel them to extend their life. The Swiss startup was designated by the European Space Agency to lead ClearSpace-1, the first mission to remove debris from orbit by 2025. The mission’s objective is to remove the PROBA-1 satellite from orbit. The ClearSpace-1 vehicle will employ a four-armed capture system with fully autonomous capabilities that will capture and conduct a perigee decrease maneuver on the 20-year-old space veteran satellite. It will then perform a deorbit maneuver, putting the pair on a destructive trajectory. The mission will be concluded with the pair burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. This mission will demonstrate technologies for rendezvous, capture, and deorbit for end-of-life satellites and to build a path to space junk remediation.
3. NORTHSTAR EARTH & SPACE
Year Founded: 2015
Location: Montreal, Qubec, Canada
CEO: Stewart Bain
NorthStar is a commercial service to monitor near-Earth orbits from space as well as process and deliver precision information to help track the location of satellites and orbital debris. With its space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities, the startup aims to deliver timely and precise space traffic data, collision avoidance, and navigation services designed for the new space economy, to ensure a future of safe and sustainable space. In January 2024, the company successfully launched NorthStar-1, the first four of its SSA satellites from the Rocket Lab Launch Complex in Mahia, New Zealand. With unobstructed views of the near-Earth environment from space, NorthStar’s ‘always on’ constellation will enable continuous monitoring of resident space objects (RSOs) across LEO, MEO, and GEO orbits. This will provide more comprehensive, frequent, and precise observations to increase trajectory model accuracy. The always-on system and distributed network is also scalable to incorporate almost all sensor types (e.g., ground-based or space-based, optical, or radar) to augment its dedicated spacebased operations through data fusion from third party data sources.
4. LEOLABS
Year Founded: 2016
Location: Menlo Park, CA
CEO: Daniel Ceperley
LeoLabs provides critical mapping and space situational awareness services to help secure safe and sustainable operations in low-Earth orbit (LEO). It has established a global network of radars to track spacecraft and debris in LEO. The network includes S-band radars shaped like snowboard halfpipes and flat UHF radars in Texas and Alaska. Its globe-spanning network of ground-based, phased array radars keeps track of the thousands of operational satellites, defunct satellites, spent rocket bodies, and pieces of debris in orbit around the Earth. Through LeoLabs Vertex™, its vertically integrated space operations stack, the startup is transforming the way satellite operators, commercial enterprises, and federal agencies launch and track missions in LEO. LeoLabs’ tracking system can detect debris as small as 2-cm across, as opposed to the much larger 10-cm objects tracked by legacy detection systems. Last year, the startup secured a U.S. Air Force small-business contract to develop a new generation of space radar better able to track objects in very low Earth orbit (VLEO).
5. KAL MORRIS INC.
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Marquette, MI
CEO: Troy M. Morris
Northern Michigan University alumni and friends, Adam Kall and brothers, Austin and Troy Morris, formed Kall Morris Inc. right out of college. The company offers end-of-life services, orbit change maneuvers, and active debris removal services. Its first prototype arrived at the International Space Station for testing in November 2024. Their REACCH capture end effector uses gecko-inspired adhesion to secure and selectively release space objects of nearly any shape, size, or surface condition without causing damage. With this mission, KMI advances its goal of developing a full-scale debris removal spacecraft known as Laelaps. With this demonstration on the International Space Station, KMI aims to showcase RE-ACCH’s role in orbital sustainability, with applications spanning relocation of satellites, space asset maintenance, and future debris removal missions. This launch reflects KMI’s broader Active Debris Removal (ADR) and Relocation As A Service (RAAS) approach, leveraging exclusive technologies to offer reliable debris management solutions to civil, commercial, and national space agencies.
6. NEURASPACE
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
CEO: Chiara Manfletti
Neuraspace was established with the goal of combating space debris with artificial intelligence. It is working to prevent the accumulation of more space debris by using AI and ML models to predict and compute the probability of collision between satellites or between satellites and existing space junk. The company’s SaaS platform facilitates coordination among satellite operators, while its Data-as-a-Service product offers comprehensive space situational awareness. Unlike existing solutions that need human experts to determine the criticality of close encounters, their product provides a personalized virtual assistant, empowering the users to manage assets and tackle the challenge of debris and increasing numbers of satellites in orbit. In September 2024, Neuraspace installed its first optical telescope in Beja, Portugal, expanding satellite tracking coverage in the Northern Hemisphere, followed by a second telescope in Chile in November 2024, capable of detecting objects as small as 10 cm in LEO and 2 m in MEO and GEO. These telescopes enable precise tracking of slower and brighter targets, and capture high-frequency data with agility, producing tracks from seconds to minutes.
7. TURION SPACE
Year Founded: 2020
Location: Irvine, CA
CEO: Ryan Westerdahl
Turion Space is building spacecraft to move things around in space and image space objects. It is focused on developing the dual-use technology required to ensure a sustainable future in space. The startup aims to build a strong foundation selling space domain awareness imagery data while advancing its technology toward an affordable solution for orbital debris removal. The founding team originates from SpaceX, and after going through the Y-combinator accelerator in summer 2021 and raising money, launched its first demo mission, Droid-1, in early 2023. The California-based startup has secured a $1.9 million contract from SpaceWERX, the U.S. Space Force’s technology arm, to develop an autonomous spacecraft docking and maneuvering system. The company is aiming to do a demonstration as early as 2026, featuring a Droid mothership hosting “micro-Droid” satellites equipped with the capturing device being developed under the SpaceWERX contract. The micro-Droid, partly funded by NASA, will use grapplers to capture debris objects.