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Spacecraft makes daring approach of metal object in Earth's orbit | Mashable


A "historic approach."

This latest and closest endeavor, achieved on Nov. 30, demonstrated the spacecraft's ability to operate precisely in such close range to the derelict rocket, a requirement for the future capture of the unwieldy, large object. "ADRAS-J successfully maintained this position until an autonomous abort was triggered by the onboard collision avoidance system due to an unexpected relative attitude anomaly with the upper stage," the company said. Additionally, the conceptual rendering below shows what this close approach likely looked like, and Astroscale has released previous images of the actual space junk target (also shown below).

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