(Bloomberg) — Astroscale Holdings Inc. founder Nobu Okada said the company will increase investment in technology to remove space debris after the pioneering company’s shares surged on its debut in Tokyo.
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The stock traded as high as ¥1,581 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Growth market, 86% above its initial public offering price at ¥850. By 1 pm local time shares were trading at ¥1,510, giving the company a market capitalization of ¥170 billion ($1.1 billion).
Demand is rapidly growing in the commercial space industry but the looming risk of orbital junk remains unpredictable, Okada said. “That’s precisely why it’s important to act now,” he said in an interview.
Okada, 51, founded Astroscale more than a decade ago and has since helped make the company a leader in the fledgling industry.
“In space, the risks are high but the returns are still low,” he said. “We need to find a way to improve the returns.”
Astroscale is a leader among a group of startups hoping to address threats caused by orbital debris, which pose risks to satellite constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink.
The Tokyo-based company, which also wants to expand into other types of services such as satellite refueling and repairing, launched an ambitious mission in February to inspect part of a Japanese rocket left in orbit, the first such attempt to make a close approach to a large piece of space junk.
The spacecraft safely approached within several hundred meters of the target, Astroscale announced on April 22.
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