Reducing Space Debris | Miki Ito | TEDxKyoto
Miki Ito of Astroscale Inc. is on a mission to collect and remove space debris surrounding the earth to create a sustainable space environment. Both as an engineer and the president of Astroscale Inc. Japan, she is pursuing the (further) development of technologically proven space debris collecting satellites.
Miki Ito joined Astroscale Japan Inc. as President in April, 2015. While working as a full-time engineer for the key technology demonstration mission of ELSA-d, she advocates the mission and gives lectures on STEM educational program. Prior to Astroscale, Ms. Ito worked as a researcher at JASTEC to coach international students from oversea in satellite manufacturing. She also worked as a researcher at NESTRA where she participated in the HODOYOSHI-3 and HODOYOSHI-4 microsatellites projects, which were developed by University of Tokyo under the FIRST (Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology) program funded by the Japanese Government. In that capacity, Miki was involved in thermal and structure design as well as test operations. In 2018, Ms. Ito was chosen as ‘Forbes Emergent 25’ and Nikkei’s ‘Nikkei Woman of The Year 2018.’ She holds a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Nihon University.