Active Debris Removal · LEO 500–800 km
Waypoint Dynamics builds small, reusable servicers that rendezvous with derelict satellites and rocket bodies, capture them, and put them on a reentry trajectory — then recover and do it again. We are a mission services company, built by operators, for the regime where debris is no longer optional to ignore.
Mission
Waypoint Dynamics removes large, end-of-life satellites and rocket bodies from Low Earth Orbit — under contract to government and commercial clients — to preserve the long-term viability of space for all users.
We exist because orbital debris is no longer a theoretical risk. It is an accumulating liability with a legal mandate and a financial consequence for every satellite operator on Earth. We are built by operators, for operators. The discipline that made commercial aviation the safest mode of transportation in history is directly transferable to rendezvous-and-proximity operations in space — and that transfer is intentional.
The orbital debris crisis
Each new mega-constellation adds thousands of satellites and, eventually, thousands of end-of-life disposal events. Without commercial removal infrastructure, the math does not close.
Concept Design · WPD-S/1
Solar-Powered Active Remediation & Re-entry Orbital Wrangler. A 12U-class servicer that rendezvous with derelict objects, captures them with a tethered net or magnetic head, imparts a retrograde delta-v with a low-thrust Hall-effect engine, and releases them onto a re-entry trajectory before recovering to a parking orbit for the next cycle. Built around three flight-demonstrated capture technologies and a flight-qualified electric propulsion stack.
Hall thruster phases altitude using Space-Track and commercial SSA catalog tracking; vision-based GNC guides approach.
Closes to ~5 m with cold-gas RCS, characterizes the tumble axis, and matches rotation with FEEP-trimmed attitude control.
Tethered net for tumbling, irregular debris — primary. Magnetic head for cooperative satellites with a ferromagnetic plate — secondary.
Tether winches in; the debris seats against the +V capture cradle and is rigidized for the deorbit burn.
Hall thruster fires retrograde over multiple sunlit arcs — a continuous spiral that walks the perigee down over days.
Below ~150 km perigee, the cradle springs the debris free with a ~0.5 m/s tangential kick. Reentry follows within 1–3 orbits.
Sparrow raises its own perigee back to the holding orbit and proceeds to the next target in-plane. Repeat.
Technology
Sparrow draws directly on three flight-demonstrated capture technologies — net, magnetic plate, drag-sail — combined with a flight-qualified Busek BHT-200 Hall thruster and an Enpulsion IFM Nano FEEP for fine proximity ops. The differentiator is not exotic hardware. It is the mission operations culture wrapped around it.
LiDAR point clouds, monocular and stereo vision, and onboard inference for real-time pose estimation of a tumbling, non-cooperative target. Safe-hold and abort logic built on aviation-derived crew resource management.
Heritage · RemoveDEBRIS · ADRAS-J approachBusek BHT-200 Hall thruster: 200 W, 13 mN, Isp ~1,390 s. A 75 kg stack walks its perigee from 700 to 120 km on ~160 m/s of delta-v — about 11 days of sunlit-arc thrusting. One ~3 kg propellant load supports about ten cycles.
Heritage · Busek BHT-200 · Enpulsion IFM NanoNo single capture mechanism is mandated for every target. Flight software and ground ops choose based on tumble state and geometry data gathered during approach. Net is primary; magnetic plate is secondary; drag-sail is contingency.
Heritage · RemoveDEBRIS net · Astroscale ELSA-d · NanoSail-D2Written procedures for every phase. Two-operator console teams with explicit speak-up authority. A Mission Operations Director with independent scrub authority — the Part 121 dispatcher model — over the operational crew. Recurrent simulation. No improvisation during critical phases.
Heritage · 40+ years of Part 121 aviation operationsTeam
Engineering-led ADR companies are well-funded and technically capable. They are not the only model. Government buyers — particularly DoD — reward demonstrated operational maturity when evaluating whether a commercial provider can be trusted with proximity operations near national security assets. We were built around that reward.
CEO & Founder
Director of Flight Operations. Chief Pilot. Director of Training. A career spent inside the discipline that made commercial aviation the safest mode of transportation in human history — and a deliberate decision to import that discipline, not just its language, into the rendezvous-and-proximity-operations regime.
CTO · Open
Senior engineer with at least one flight-heritage RPO mission. Owns technical architecture, leads the engineering team through TRL 6, principal investigator on SBIR proposals. Equity target 25–35%, four-year vest, one-year cliff. Pre-condition for full seed close.
Contact
Government program offices, commercial constellation operators, capital partners, and prospective hires — start a conversation. We respond within two business days.