ALE

About ALE

ALE Co., Ltd. is a Japanese space startup founded in 2011 by Lena Okajima, who holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Tokyo. The idea for the company came to Okajima in 2001 while watching the Leonid meteor shower, sparking the ambition to create artificial shooting stars. Prior to founding ALE, she gained experience in finance at Goldman Sachs Japan and had also established other ventures, including an online gaming company and a business consulting firm.

The company's core business revolves around its SKY CANVAS project, which aims to deliver the world's first on-demand, man-made meteor showers for entertainment purposes. The business model targets clients such as governments, municipalities, and companies in the entertainment, media, and advertising industries for events like festivals and city promotions. The process involves launching small satellites into a low-Earth orbit of about 400km. These satellites release non-toxic, 1cm-diameter particles that burn up upon entering the atmosphere at an altitude of 60 to 80 kilometers, creating a bright, multi-colored light show visible across a 200km-diameter area. These artificial meteors are designed to travel slower and glow longer than natural ones, making them visible even in light-polluted urban areas.

Beyond entertainment, ALE is committed to contributing to scientific development. The artificial meteor showers serve a dual purpose by providing a method to collect atmospheric data from the mesosphere, a region too high for weather balloons and too low for satellites. By studying the trajectory and light emissions of the particles, scientists can gather data on wind speed, atmospheric composition, and density, which can help improve the accuracy of climate change models and weather forecasting. The company launched its first satellite, ALE-1, in January 2019, followed by ALE-2 in December 2019. However, malfunctions with these satellites delayed the first commercial show, which is now anticipated for 2025 with a third satellite. In July 2023, ALE transferred the assets of its space debris mitigation business, which was developing an Electro-Dynamic Tether (EDT), to a new company called BULL Co., Ltd., to focus on its core businesses.