Exotrail and Astroscale France join forces to build deorbiting capability for LEO

BRUSSELS — Exotrail, a French company specializing in multi-orbit satellite mobility and focused on LEO service vehicles, together with Astroscale France, the French subsidiary of the Japan-based on-orbit servicing company, announced Jan. 28 a partnership aimed at testing deorbiting capabilities in low Earth orbit.

The mission itself has not yet been fully approved. “We are still in the selection process by the French government,” Maxime Jambon, vice president of public affairs at Exotrail, said. “But we hope to know whether we have passed the selection by the summer of 2026.” If approved, Exotrail aims to launch the mission by 2030 on a commercial satellite from a European provider that has not yet been disclosed.

The project is supported under the umbrella of the French government’s recovery fund, France 2030, with Exotrail also investing its own funds in the development of the new testing capabilities. An initial framework was developed in 2025 through a study phase led by Exotrail under a contract with CNES as part of France 2030. This new partnership builds on that framework to complete a study of a deorbiting mission for a LEO constellation satellite, with the goal for this demonstration phase being working on the interface between Exotrail’s service vehicle and Astroscale’s rendezvous and proximity operations capabilities.

“We see Astroscale as a company that already masters this type of technology, while also benefiting from linking those capabilities to a satellite and a platform,” Jean-Luc Maria, co-founder and CEO of Exotrail, told SpaceNews. “On paper, we could appear as competitors — that’s true — but this is the time for alliances,” Maria said. “It will be in everyone’s interest to join forces in order to accelerate.”

“Exotrail is interested, in the long run, in selling integrated services that can provide both mobility and rendezvous technologies,” Maria added. “But for that, we need to master new technologies. We already spent 10 years developing propulsion systems and the first version of our LEO service vehicle. We could have decided to fully verticalize and integrate proximity maneuvers, but that would have meant entering another R&D phase.”

The partnership is envisioned as a multi-year collaboration. “This framework with Astroscale is much broader than a one-off opportunity,” Maria said. “The idea is to find a partner not only for this mission, but to build a real commercial capability. What we want to show the market is that this is the right time for partnerships.”