Astroscale's Robot Tug: The Solution to Space Junk?

Japan's Astroscale is offering the first commercial deorbiting service for hire to tackle the issue of space junk. Astroscale's satellite is designed to dock with defunct spacecraft, lower its orbit using thrusters, and release it on a trajectory towards Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up. The company demonstrated its satellite's ability to latch onto a docking plate through a capture and release test in low Earth orbit in 2021 and plans to send its first satellite to low Earth orbit in 2025 for testing.