KESSA
KESSA
ORBITAL
ORBITAL
The Cascade
Kessa Orbital
Kessa Orbital exists to establish that reusable, autonomous debris removal is economically viable before it is expensively built. Five reduced-order models, calibrated to published benchmarks. Every assumption stated. Every falsification condition listed.
Debris begets debris.
The catastrophic collision rate scales with the square of object density. Above a critical threshold the process is self-sustaining. Halting launches does not halt growth.
The figures
40,000 tracked objects · 1,200,000 fragments larger than 1 cm · 13,000 t total mass in orbit · 650+ known break-up events · 11,000 functioning payloads. (ESA Space Environment Report 2025 · Liou, Johnson & Hill 2010)
The Cascade
Kessa Orbital
Kessa Orbital exists to establish that reusable, autonomous debris removal is economically viable before it is expensively built. Five reduced-order models, calibrated to published benchmarks. Every assumption stated. Every falsification condition listed.
Debris begets debris.
The catastrophic collision rate scales with the square of object density. Above a critical threshold the process is self-sustaining. Halting launches does not halt growth.
The figures
40,000 tracked objects · 1,200,000 fragments larger than 1 cm · 13,000 t total mass in orbit · 650+ known break-up events · 11,000 functioning payloads. (ESA Space Environment Report 2025 · Liou, Johnson & Hill 2010)
Debris stays up for centuries.
A dead satellite at 800 km stays there for 336 years. The same object at 550 km falls out of orbit in nine. Nothing above the line comes down on any timescale that matters.
Debris stays up for centuries.
A dead satellite at 800 km stays there for 336 years. The same object at 550 km falls out of orbit in nine. Nothing above the line comes down on any timescale that matters.
Debris stays up for centuries.
A dead satellite at 800 km stays there for 336 years. The same object at 550 km falls out of orbit in nine. Nothing above the line comes down on any timescale that matters.
- 01 — Select: Targets are chosen by mass, altitude, and inclination cluster. The priority band is 740–880 km, sun-synchronous. It holds the highest mass-at-risk and orbital lifetimes measured in centuries. Plane-change Δv dominates the budget, so targets are worked through in inclination groups rather than one by one.
- 02 — Rendezvous: The shepherd closes on a target it has never seen. Between clusters it exploits differential J2 nodal precession rather than propellant. Approach is passively safe. The object is uncatalogued in detail, tumbling at an unknown rate, and observed under high-contrast lighting.
- 03 — Capture: A tether net encloses the target. Nothing is pre-installed on it. Vision-language perception estimates 6-DoF pose. A learned world model predicts the tumble forward. The net leaves the canister at the instant the attitude permits enclosure. Sub-degree pose error raises single-attempt capture probability from 41.9% to 76.5%.
- 04 — Dispose: An expendable kit is attached and the shepherd releases. Below 620 km the kit is a passive drag sail. Above it, a small propulsive stage. Altitude sets the method; decay time above the crossover exceeds every policy horizon.
- 05 — Repeat: The shepherd survives and proceeds to the next target. Prior missions fused capture and disposal into one disposable vehicle, spending an entire spacecraft per object removed. Separating them collapses cost per removal from $41.8M toward $0.75M.
- 01 — Select: Targets are chosen by mass, altitude, and inclination cluster. The priority band is 740–880 km, sun-synchronous. It holds the highest mass-at-risk and orbital lifetimes measured in centuries. Plane-change Δv dominates the budget, so targets are worked through in inclination groups rather than one by one.
- 02 — Rendezvous: The shepherd closes on a target it has never seen. Between clusters it exploits differential J2 nodal precession rather than propellant. Approach is passively safe. The object is uncatalogued in detail, tumbling at an unknown rate, and observed under high-contrast lighting.
- 03 — Capture: A tether net encloses the target. Nothing is pre-installed on it. Vision-language perception estimates 6-DoF pose. A learned world model predicts the tumble forward. The net leaves the canister at the instant the attitude permits enclosure. Sub-degree pose error raises single-attempt capture probability from 41.9% to 76.5%.
- 04 — Dispose: An expendable kit is attached and the shepherd releases. Below 620 km the kit is a passive drag sail. Above it, a small propulsive stage. Altitude sets the method; decay time above the crossover exceeds every policy horizon.
- 05 — Repeat: The shepherd survives and proceeds to the next target. Prior missions fused capture and disposal into one disposable vehicle, spending an entire spacecraft per object removed. Separating them collapses cost per removal from $41.8M toward $0.75M.
economics
Reusability is the lever.
economics