04 / Program

Program progress

JUJUME is an early-stage, venture-backed company building hardware, a flight programme and a team at the same time. This page says where the programme actually stands, which gates are behind us and which are ahead.

Stage
Early stage, venture backed, pre-seed closed
Capture system
PDR and CDR complete
Base
Innovation and incubation centre, Los Angeles
Hiring
Engineering and mission roles open

Where we stand

A programme measured in gates passed

Debris removal attracts a lot of announcements. We would rather be judged on review gates, closed funding rounds and hardware that exists.

The core of our technical work so far is the soft robotic capture system, and it has been taken through the standard aerospace review sequence rather than around it. The preliminary design review confirmed that the concept and the requirements behind it held together. The critical design review confirmed that the detailed design was mature, sound and ready to advance. Both are complete.

On the company side, a pre-seed round has closed, which makes JUJUME venture backed and funds the move from design into build. We are based at a major innovation and incubation centre supporting space technology ventures, which gives the programme access to facilities, neighbours working on adjacent problems, and the kind of scrutiny that improves a design.

We are also engaged with the international space community through industry consortia, technical conferences and direct partnerships, and we serve clients across borders. That engagement is not promotional. Alignment on which objects matter, what evidence of removal looks like and what standards a removal service should meet is useful work, and it is cheaper to do it early than to discover a mismatch during a campaign.

What comes next is build and qualification, then demonstrating the full sequence on orbit, then delivering removals as a repeatable service. We are explicit about that ordering because operators planning a disposal strategy need to know the difference between what exists and what is planned.

Milestones

Complete, active, open

Grouped by state rather than date, so the picture does not depend on when you happen to read it.

Complete

01 Preliminary design review The capture system matured through its preliminary review gate, confirming the concept and the requirements derived from the target class. Complete
02 Critical design review The soft robotic capture system passed critical design review, with the detailed design judged sound and ready to advance toward build. Complete
03 Pre-seed fundraising A pre-seed round closed, making JUJUME venture backed and funding the transition from design work into hardware. Complete

Active

04 Innovation and incubation base Operating from a major innovation and incubation centre supporting space technology ventures, with the facilities and proximity that implies. Active
05 International space community Engaged across borders through industry consortia, technical conferences and partnerships with organisations working the same problem. Active
06 Cross-border customer development Working with commercial satellite operators, government bodies and national space agencies on the objects each considers a priority. Active

Open

07 Building the team Recruiting engineering and mission talent across the disciplines a removal programme depends on. Open
08 Build and qualification Taking the reviewed capture system design into hardware, then proving that what was built behaves the way the design predicted. Next gate

Ahead

The road to a repeatable service

Four stages, in order, each one dependent on the last. We are not interested in skipping any of them.

01

Build and qualification

Turning a reviewed design into hardware and subjecting it to the environments it will actually see. Qualification is where optimistic assumptions get found, which is exactly why it comes before flight rather than after.

Next

02

Flight demonstration

Flying the full sequence on orbit: approach, inspection, capture and controlled disposal, against a real object with real tumble. One end-to-end demonstration answers questions no ground test can.

Planned

03

First operational removals

Customer campaigns against objects chosen by operators and agencies rather than by us, with the documentation and disposal evidence that makes a removal count for compliance purposes.

Planned

04

Service at scale

Multi-object campaigns across orbital regimes at a cost per object that lets customers plan removal into their operations as a routine line item rather than an exceptional project.

Objective

How we work

Six habits we are not willing to trade

Early-stage companies make most of their lasting decisions in the first two years. These are ours.

01

Requirements before concepts

We write down what the target class demands before deciding what to build. A clever mechanism aimed at the wrong population is a waste of a good idea.

02

Gates in order

Design reviews exist to catch problems while they are still cheap. We work through the sequence rather than treating it as paperwork to be caught up on later.

03

Cost as a requirement

Cost per object sits in the requirements document alongside mass and power, because a service nobody can afford removes nothing.

04

No new debris

Every design decision is checked against the possibility of generating fragments. It is the one failure mode that makes the whole exercise counterproductive.

05

Keep the chain together

Target analysis, mechanism design and flight operations stay in the same building. The handoffs between them are where this kind of mission usually breaks.

06

Say what is true

Complete, next and planned are different words. We use them precisely, internally and with customers.

Careers

We are building the team that flies this

A removal programme needs people who are comfortable with hardware, with uncertainty, and with the fact that the target does not care about the schedule.

We are recruiting engineering and mission talent to advance our debris removal missions. The work is early enough that the people joining now will shape how the system is built rather than inherit it, and small enough that nobody gets to specialise all the way down.

We do not keep a long standing list of postings, because the programme moves faster than a careers page does. If your discipline is on this list, or you think we are missing one we should have, write to us directly and tell us what you have built.

Talk to us about joining

Disciplines this programme needs

  • Guidance, navigation and control, with relative navigation experience
  • Robotics and mechanisms, especially compliant and soft systems
  • Spacecraft propulsion and propellant systems
  • Avionics, power and electronics
  • Flight software and autonomy
  • Structures, mechanisms and thermal design
  • Systems engineering and requirements ownership
  • Test engineering, qualification and integration
  • Flight dynamics, mission design and operations

What we look for

  • Hardware that you personally saw through to working
  • Comfort with requirements, margins and review gates
  • Honesty about what your analysis does and does not cover
  • Willingness to work outside your title in a small team

Get in touch

Follow the programme

If you are an operator, an agency or an engineer who wants to know what happens at the next gate, the fastest route is to ask us directly.

Contact the mission team How the system works