Space junk cleanup company Astroscale UK has secured ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification as it prepares for a planned orbital debris removal mission.
The British arm of Japan-based Astroscale spent 20 months putting new security policies, processes and oversight in place before completing an independent audit. The certification makes the company eligible to work with government and private companies to prepare and launch missions.
The company is focused on ELSA-M, a mission designed to capture and remove a dead object from orbit, and Orpheus, an MoD program focused on building a sovereign UK capability to service satellites in space.
“Our missions combine frontier robotics and autonomous rendezvous with exacting operational discipline,” said Nick Shave, Managing Director at Astroscale UK. “As we prepare ELSA-M, the world’s first active debris removal mission, and advance the UK MOD Orpheus programme, we must give customers, government partners and suppliers confidence in the way we manage sensitive information across the business and response to evolving external risks.”
Both programs depend on rendezvous and proximity operations, where one spacecraft approaches, inspects and works close to another without collision. Astroscale has already tested these systems through ELSA-d and ADRAS-J, with the latter approaching a discarded Japanese rocket body to within 15 meters in 2024.
The same technology used to inspect or remove debris can also support satellite servicing and defence missions, making orbital robotics an increasingly important part of space security. In a time when space-based GPS and other vital systems are susceptible to tampering and even destruction, a robot that can fix space infrastructure or clean up a potentially dangerous debris field is becoming less like a Star Wars fever dream and more like a must-have for most militaries.
