Alexandra Gravereaux is a Ground Systems Engineer for the space startup Astroscale. Astroscale is a global company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with offices in the UK, Singapore and the USA, and is developing technological and regulatory solutions for space debris removal. The mission of Astroscale is to guarantee the long-term safety of spaceflight and orbital sustainability by developing end-of-life services for satellites and active debris removal. This relates to removing space junk that has accumulated due to defunct satellites and jettisoned rocket interstages; guaranteeing that regulations are in place to prevent the build-up of further space junk; and technological solutions to de-orbit defunct satellites.

The company is currently designing and manufacturing its End-of-Life Service by Astroscale programme (ELSA), a spacecraft retrieval service for satellite operators. The first demonstration mission, known as ELSA-d, is scheduled to launch in 2020, and will demonstrate Astroscale’s technology for debris docking and removal in orbit. In this episode, Alex and I talk about:

her background in the space sector
the problem of accumulating space debris and how to deal with it
the details of Astroscale’s ELSA-d demonstration mission in 2020
and Alex’s expertise as a ground systems engineer.





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Selected Links from the Episode

Astroscale webpage (Twitter, LinkedIn)
ELSA-d mission
Astroscale gets funding for commercial debris removal
Tackling space junk (BBC)
The problem of space junk (National Geographic)
Kessler Syndrome