Asian AngleHow Japan can edge out China to become a world leader in cleaning up space junk

Orbital debris is a growing problem that urgently needs to be dealt with. China has made some progress, but its efforts have been met with scepticism

Japan has the advanced technologies, specialised know-how and international trustworthiness that make it an obvious choice to lead clean-up efforts

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Space debris has the potential to make in low-Earth orbit essentially unusable if a collision were to trigger a catastrophic domino effect. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 10:30am, 9 Jul 2023

Imagine a piece of debris the size of a coin. While harmless enough in your hand, such a scrap of detritus in low-Earth orbit would be moving fast enough to destroy satellites. And there are, by some estimates, nearly 170 million objects of similar size or smaller currently whizzing around our planet – many of them too small to be tracked.

The effects of an impact could range from knocking out a single, albeit expensive, satellite to a catastrophic collisional cascade that could theoretically make low-Earth orbit all but unusable for many years to come. Amid the rising concern, Japan’s Astroscale last month unveiled its plans to become the first company to successfully demonstrate the commercial use of a vehicle that can remove multiple decommissioned satellites from orbit in a single mission.

Orbital debris, then, presents not only challenges but opportunities – especially for small-to-medium space powers such as Japan – to demonstrate their superior technological know-how in niche areas and show international leadership.

Debris mitigation is of particular interest to Japan, whose approach to the issue as one of the world’s leading space actors can be characterised by multisectoral collaboration at the national level and active participation in international rule-making platforms.