A Tokyo company's satellite encounters a big lump of space debris high above the Earth
ASTROSCALE. The old rocket segment comes into view about 600km above the Earth.
A satellite operated by Japanese company Astroscale has chased down a 15 year-old piece of space junk and taken an up-close image of it.
Millions of items of techno-detritus have accumulated overhead since the start of the space age in 1957 - from flecks of paint to the abandoned upper-stages of rockets, like the one just pictured by Astroscale.
The inspection satellite Adras-J will spend the next weeks surveying the rocket segment.
The European Space Agency has counted 2,220 rocket bodies still in orbit today.
ASTROSCALE. Future missions will use robotic arms to reach out and grab space junk.
Great care is needed not to bump into the rocket segment, which is slowly turning end over end.
The plan is to spend the coming weeks taking more imagery and gathering information on the rocket segment, such as the condition of the structure, its spin rate, and spin axis.
Adras-J will will attempt to fly around the rocket body in the process.
Artwork: How the scene might appear from the rocket's perspective, looking back at Adras-J. On this occasion, Adras-J will limit itself to an experiment in which it will try to slow the tumbling rate of the rocket stage.