MAY 2018 FORBES ASIA | 49On a Mission
D
epending on the size cutof , there are
anywhere from 20,000 to 100 million
fragments speeding around earth
at up to 8 kilometers per second,
ranging from tiny specks of forgotten satellites to
chunks of failed rockets. Collisions between objects
create even more debris, a situation that let un-
checked could theoretically make space unusable.
h at’s where 35-year-old Miki Ito comes in.
With a master’s degree in aerospace engineering
from Nihon University, Ito is president of
Astroscale Japan, which was founded to nd cost-
ef ective ways to clean up space. Astroscale, which
has raised about $53 million in funding (see story,
p. 16) , has its corporate headquarters in Singapore
but carries out development in Japan, where it
has a research agreement with the country’s space
agency and is developing a demonstration satellite
called ELSA-d to remove space junk.
As Japan struggles to bolster its number of fe-
male executives, Ito is a rare woman in STEM and one of just a few at
an aerospace startup. In an interview with Forbes Asia, she explains
what inspired her career:Ito: In junior high school, the movie Independence Day let an
impression on me. h e alien spaceship was so futuristic and
beautiful. At er that, I wanted to do work related to space—that
could have been as an astronaut or building rockets. I entered
college with the general idea of space and entered a lab that was
working on satellites.What was your experience in STEM at a Japanese university?
h ere are quite a few women in chemistry, biology and architecture.
But there are not that many in engineering. It didn’t really af ect me
that there were mainly men around me. Not being overly feminine,
I didn’t feel that they treated me dif erently because I was a woman.What’s behind the mini-boom in Japanese space startups?
Investment has become easier because of small satellites. And it’s
become cheaper. h ey’ve gotten smaller because high-performance
components have become smaller and less expensive, and the
realization... that of -the-shelf commercial components can work
in space.What was your experience before joining Astroscale?
I was a satellite engineer for a program to build small satellites
sponsored by the Cabinet Oi ce. h ey were 50-centimeter cubes
weighing 50 to 60 kilograms to observe the earth with two cameras.
h e goal was to quickly and cheaply make satellites that would just
get the job done.What is Astroscale’s business model?
With [telecommunications, aerospace and other companies] want-
ing to put up low-earth-orbit satellites by the thousands for commu-
nication and earth observation, if a satellite fails the service provider
will want to send a replacement. But that isn’t possible unless the
broken satellite is i rst dealt with. We can put physical targets on the
satellites of companies we have contracts with, in case one needs to
be captured and pushed back into the atmosphere to burn up. Our
satellite would capture the broken satellite and propel itself and the
dead unit into the atmosphere. h e technical hurdle for this is much
lower than for current debris already in space.When do you expect commercialization?
We plan to launch the ELSA-d demonstration satellite toward the
end of 2019 to test its chase, capture and deorbit capabilities and to
commercialize starting in 2020.Space is less a i nal frontier these days than a i nal garbage dump. Japan’s Miki Ito
has a plan to scrub space clean of junk.
BY JAMES SIMMS
Miki Ito 35
PRESIDENT
ASTROSCALE JAPAN
JAPANF