Japanese company to deorbit big hunk of space junk by 2029

An old rocket body tumbles in space above Earth as seen from Japan's Astroscale ADRAS-J satellite.

Japanese space-sustainability company Astroscale just inked a $90 million deal to take a bus-sized rocket stage out of orbit by the end of the decade.

The pioneering project, funded by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is a continuation of Astroscale's ADRAS-J mission, which recently completed an up-close orbital inspection of a 12-year-old upper stage of a Japanese H-2A rocket.