• We are excited to announce we have raised U.S. $76 million from new investors including Mitsubishi Electric and Yusaku Maezawa, bringing our total raised to U.S. $376 million.
  
  This funding round demonstrates strong investor confidence in our stability, success and market leadership in the on-orbit services sector, despite the extremely challenging global economic climate.  
  
  “We are on a mission to make on-orbit servicing routine by 2030, and these funds will significantly contribute to further innovative technology development, global expansion and increased supply capacity to meet growing demand,” said Nobu Okada, our Founder & CEO. 
   
• Yusaku Maezawa, the first Japanese civilian to visit the International Space Station, has become one of our main investors! We are looking forward to our partnership.  
  
  “As someone who has visited space, I understand the immense dangers posed by debris in orbit,” said Maezawa. “The promise of civilian space travel will begin with the dearMoon mission, but space tourism will not realize its full potential without a sustainable space environment. I strongly support Astroscale for its inspiring vision of sustainability, driven by their global thought leadership, innovative technologies and strong ties with governments around the world." 

We've agreed with Mitsubishi Electric to collaborate in developing & manufacturing sustainably designed satellite buses for Japanese national-security constellations.     
  
This agreement is separate from & in addition to their U.S. $25 million investment in our Series G funding round.    
  
Let's make space safe, secure & sustainable!

Our Astroscale Ltd. SSA team has won funding from The UK MOD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) to explore space-based space domain awareness (SB-SDA) mission concepts for launch in the 2030s. Astroscale Ltd. formed the winning consortium teaming with Raytheon NORSS and SJE Space Ltd for the project.

We’re thrilled to be part of a winning team that was awarded a $1.7 million contract by the U.S. Space Force as part of its Orbital Prime program. Led by Cislunar Industries, this newly funded collaboration project — a circular propulsion ecosystem based on the ability to recycle metal in space to enable enhanced satellite mobility — directly addresses the Space Force’s desire to make space operations more resilient. 

Congratulations to Carolyn Belle, Director of Advanced Systems for Astroscale U.S., on being recognized as part of Via Satellite’s Celebrating Women in Satellite 2023 profiles!  

“Carolyn is committed to creating a sustainable economy in space. She has been dedicated to various leadership roles within the industry — both within the companies she has supported, and in the larger Women in Aerospace network.... In her role at Astroscale, Carolyn has championed space sustainability, helping create business models that enable debris removal to become a lasting solution. She has a deep knowledge of the industry, a sharp strategic mind, and is a team player working toward the common good," said Katherine Monson, Hedron Space. 

President & Managing Director of Astroscale U.S. Ron Lopez attended the first National Space Council User Advisory Group meeting in 2023. He and other space leaders met with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss the nation’s space priorities.

Events

We were thrilled to join the inaugural Space Mobility & SpaceCom conference in Orlando. Charity Weeden spoke on a riveting orbital debris panel, and at SpaceCom later in the week, Jack Deasy dived into ISAM during the Creating a Robust & Sustainable ISAM Ecosystem panel. This conference will only continue to grow, as will our presence next year. Great job Space Mobility and SpaceCom team!

We joined SmallSat Symposium this year, where Astroscale U.S. EVP Clare Martin spoke on the very Astroscaleoriented panel Orbital Debris Removal and Mitigation: Situational Awareness, Mobility, Propulsion and Tugs. She did such a great job she was interviewed for SpaceNews. You can check out the article HERE.

Register to watch the recording of our NewSpace RoundTable, 'On-Orbit Servicing as Competitive Advantage in the GEO Market' with C21.
Hear from industry experts from Astroscale (Ryan Reel, Director of Global Satellite Life Extension and On-orbit Services), Inmarsat Global (Mark Dickinson, Deputy CEO and VP Space Segment), Beazley Group (Denis Bensoussan, Head of Space London) and Saturn Satellite Networks (Hale Reynolds, Vice President of Technology).

In the news

• Many media outlets covered Series G and Mitsubishi Electric partnership announcements, including TechCrunch, Via Satellite, Space News, Barron’s, Bloomberg, the Nikkei, Yomiuri, and Business Insider.
• Nikkei Asia published a piece about space debris, highlighting the severity of the issue and efforts by companies including Astroscale.
• Dr. Clare Martin was quoted in the SpaceNews article, Space industry undeterred by congestion and debris:
  “Clare Martin, executive vice president of Astroscale, a space logistics company based in Japan and the U.S., said the industry is increasingly motivated to ensure the sustainability of the space environment. Astroscale offers active debris-removal services, which the industry expects governments to pay for. However, companies are willing to invest in capabilities to prevent further debris creation. 'Commercial operators are actually actively engaged in behaving responsibly and sustainably and working with companies like ourselves to move things forward in the right direction,’ Martin said. On the government side, she said, 'the conversation in the U.S. has really picked up over the last year or two which is very, very positive.’”