03 / Technology

Flight system

Two complementary spacecraft built to operate as one, and the soft robotic capture system at the heart of both. A carrier that delivers capability to the orbits that need it, and a servicer that does the close work when it arrives.

Architecture: Carrier and servicer pairing
Core technology: Soft robotic capture system
Design assumption: Uncooperative, tumbling targets
Review status: Preliminary and critical design reviews complete

Architecture

Separate the travelling from the catching

Getting to an object and grabbing it are different problems with different requirements. We solved them with different vehicles.

A single spacecraft that can both cross orbital planes and perform delicate close-proximity work ends up compromised at both. Propulsion and propellant dominate the first job. Sensing, control authority and mechanism dominate the second. Sizing one vehicle for both means carrying mass you do not need during the phase that matters most.

So the system splits. The carrier is the mother vehicle: propulsion, power and reach, built to transport and deploy capture capability across orbital locations rather than within a single shell. The servicer is the close-work vehicle: relative navigation, proximity control and the capture mechanism, built to approach something that cannot help it and hold onto it without breaking either body.

Operating as a complementary pair turns one capture mechanism into a system that can be delivered, repeatedly, to the orbits that actually need clearing. That repeatability is what separates a service from a demonstration, and it is the reason cost per object can fall as a campaign lengthens.

The carrier moves capability between regimes. The servicer works within arm's reach.

Carrier: Transports and deploys the servicer. Owns propulsion, power generation and cross-orbit reach.
Servicer: Performs rendezvous, proximity operations, capture and controlled de-orbit of the target.
Capture system: Compliant soft robotic mechanism carried by the servicer. The point of contact with the target.
Ground segment: Mission planning, flight dynamics and live operations, run by the team that designed the campaign.

The vehicles

What each one is for

01Capture and servicing vehicle

The Servicer

The servicer is the vehicle that does the close work. It performs the rendezvous and proximity operations needed to safely approach an uncooperative target, deploys the soft robotic capture system to grasp it, and then carries out controlled de-orbiting of the combined stack.

Everything about it is shaped by the hardest moment in the mission: making contact with something that is tumbling, was never meant to be caught and cannot help you catch it. That drives the sensing it carries, the control authority it needs in the final metres, and the compliance built into the mechanism at the end of the arm.

It also drives what the vehicle does not do. The servicer is not asked to cross orbital planes under its own power or carry propellant for a campaign it is not yet flying. That work belongs to the carrier, which keeps the servicer sized for the phase where precision matters more than range.

Responsibilities

Approach: Relative navigation and proximity control against a non-cooperative object
Inspection: Close-range characterisation of condition, geometry and tumble
Capture: Deployment and operation of the soft robotic capture system
Stabilisation: Bringing the combined stack under control as a single body
Disposal: Controlled de-orbit of the captured object on a deliberate path

Design drivers

Uncooperative targets
Low contact loads
Abortable approach
Predictable disposal

02Orbital mother vehicle

The Carrier

The carrier is the mother vehicle. It transports and deploys the servicer, providing the propulsion, power and reach to position capture capability where the targets actually are, across different orbital locations rather than one fixed shell.

Debris is not conveniently distributed. The objects that matter most are spread across altitudes and inclinations, and an operator or agency rarely has the luxury of a target list that sits neatly in one plane. A vehicle whose job is to move capability around is what makes that list addressable.

The pairing also changes the economics. When the expensive part of the architecture is reusable across several captures in one campaign, cost per object stops being set by a single mission and starts being set by how many objects that campaign can reach.

Responsibilities

Transport: Carrying the servicer to the operating region for a campaign
Deployment: Releasing the servicer at the right point in the mission profile
Propulsion: The orbital manoeuvring that gives the system cross-regime reach
Power: Generation and distribution for the system across the campaign
Support: Serving as the platform the servicer operates from

Design drivers

Cross-orbit reach
Campaign duration
Multi-object sequencing
Cost per removal

03Core technology

Soft robotic capture

At the centre of the system is a compliant grasping mechanism developed in house. The reasoning behind it is simple enough to state in one sentence: almost nothing in the existing debris population has an interface designed to be grabbed.

Rigid capture mechanisms are precise and strong, and they assume a cooperative fixture in a known place with a known orientation. Satellites built for servicing have one. Spent upper stages, fragmentation debris and satellites launched decades ago do not. A compliant system conforms to the awkward geometry that is actually there, which converts a long list of impossible targets into a list of feasible ones.

Compliance matters even more at the moment of contact. A tumbling object arrives with residual motion that cannot be fully removed beforehand, and a rigid mechanism has to fight that motion through its structure. A soft system absorbs and accommodates it, keeping contact loads low on both bodies. In this line of work that is not a comfort feature. The failure mode it prevents is a capture attempt that shatters the target and makes the environment worse.

Engineering has advanced through formal gates. The capture system has completed its preliminary design review and its critical design review, with the design judged sound and ready to advance toward build and qualification.

Why compliance

Conforms to geometry instead of requiring a fixture
Accommodates residual tumble at contact
Keeps contact loads low on target and servicer
Reduces the risk of generating fragments
Widens the set of targets a single mechanism can address

Applies to

Spent rocket bodies
Derelict satellites
Large fragments
Serviceable spacecraft

Review status

PDR complete CDR complete

Rendezvous and proximity operations

The last kilometre is the whole problem

Far-field phasing

Orbit raising, plane matching and drift control bring the servicer into the target's neighbourhood. Absolute navigation is sufficient here, and the margins are measured in kilometres.

Relative navigation acquisition

Onboard sensing acquires the target and the vehicle switches from knowing where it is to knowing where it is relative to the object. Everything after this point is measured against the target, not the Earth.

Hold point and inspection

The servicer stabilises at a safe standoff and observes. Geometry, surface condition, appendages and the real tumble rate are measured here, because the analysis done on the ground is never the whole story.

Grasp point selection

A structural feature that can take the load, in a position reachable given how the object is rotating. This is the decision the inspection phase exists to inform.

Final approach

Closure along the agreed corridor with abort criteria live throughout. Relative rates are driven down to the window the capture system is designed to accept.

Contact and stabilisation

A compliant grasp, then the combined stack is brought under control as a single rigid body before any disposal manoeuvre begins.

Every phase can be abandoned

Hold points exist so that the mission can stop and back away at any stage without creating a hazard. An approach that cannot be aborted is not an approach we fly.

Disposal

Controlled means chosen

The difference between a controlled de-orbit and an uncontrolled one is not the destination. It is whether anybody decided on it.

How disposal fits a campaign

Once the stack is stable, the servicer executes a disposal sequence that puts the captured object onto a deliberate path. Being deliberate is the whole value. An object left to atmospheric drag comes down eventually, somewhere, on a schedule nobody can commit to. An object brought down on a planned sequence can be tracked, documented and closed out.

That matters for three reasons. It is what a regulator or insurer can accept as evidence. It is what lets an operator state a date rather than a probability. And it is what keeps the removal itself from becoming a new uncertainty in an environment that already has too many.

We also apply the same standard to ourselves. The spacecraft we fly are subject to the disposal expectations we are hired to help others meet, because a debris removal company that abandons its own hardware in orbit has not understood its own product.

Path: Planned and flown rather than left to drag
Evidence: Tracking data and documentation showing the object has left orbit
Our hardware: Held to the same disposal standard as the targets we remove

Adjacent capability

In-space refueling

The same capabilities that end a mission cleanly can prolong one. We have identified refueling as a natural extension of the platform.

Reaching another spacecraft safely and connecting to it is the expensive part of any servicing mission. Once a vehicle can do that against an object that is actively uncooperative, doing it against one that is healthy and stable is a smaller problem, not a larger one.

Propellant is usually the first consumable to run out on a satellite that is otherwise working perfectly. Replacing that satellite costs far more than the propellant it launched with, and the replacement adds new mass to an orbit that already has too much. Refueling avoids both.

Shared heritage: Rendezvous, proximity operations and capture are common to removal and refueling.
Target class: Healthy spacecraft, which are easier to approach than the derelicts we design for.
Operator value: Extended mission life instead of early replacement.
Environmental value: Fewer replacement launches, and less new mass added to congested shells.
Status: Identified as an adjacent capability of clear interest. Removal remains the primary programme.

Engineering approach

Gates, not promises

Gate	What it establishes	Status
Concept definition	The architecture, the target class and the requirements that follow from both	Complete
Preliminary design review	That the design approach meets requirements and the concept is sound	Complete
Critical design review	That the detailed design is mature enough to build	Complete
Build and qualification	That hardware as built behaves the way the design said it would	Next
Flight demonstration	That the system performs the full sequence on orbit, end to end	Planned
Operational service	That removals can be delivered repeatedly, to schedule, at a cost that works	Planned

Design for the worst target

Requirements are set by uncooperative, tumbling objects with no interface. Anything easier is margin rather than a separate design case.

Keep the chain in house

Target analysis, capture mechanism and flight operations are developed together, because the interfaces between them are where removal missions fail.

State the status honestly

We distinguish between what has passed a gate and what is planned. Customers building a disposal strategy around a service deserve that precision.

Get in touch

Ask us the hard questions

Engineers, operators and agency programme leads are all welcome to interrogate the architecture. We would rather have the technical conversation early.

Contact the mission team Programme status