Starfish Space’s ambitious first mission to demonstrate in-orbit rendezvous and docking technology has officially come to an end. Thanks to a little help from an unexpected partner, space logistics company D-Orbit, the startup was able to achieve some of its goals.
Starfish launched its first spacecraft, called Otter Pup, almost a year ago with the ambitious plan of using it to rendezvous and dock with another satellite in orbit. But the mission ran into trouble just hours after launch after the Otter Pup satellite flew into orbit with a malfunction. Otter Pup was ejected in an emergency and sent on a dizzying dive through space.
While the company managed to slow the spin – itself a phenomenal feat of quick thinking and engineering – another problem arose a few months later when French startup Exotrail’s onboard electric thrusters suffered an anomaly and stopped working.
The company had to go back to the drawing board. A docking maneuver was now off the table, but a rendezvous attempt might still be possible. The team began looking for possible partners, Starfish co-founder and CEO Austin Link said in a recent interview with TechCrunch.
That’s not an easy task: They had to find an operational spacecraft without conflicting mission objectives that had the necessary delta-V – that is, enough onboard propulsion – to maneuver close enough to Otter Pup.
Starfish eventually turned to Italian space logistics startup D-Orbit, which is launching orbital transfer vehicles that deliver and host payloads in space. D-Orbit’s ION satellites are not designed for maneuvering, but the two companies took a closer look at ION’s fuel budget and determined that rendezvous is feasible.
Orbital rendezvous are complicated: Spacecraft move at seven kilometers per second, and there are other orbital conditions, such as air resistance, that make calculating a vehicle’s trajectory difficult. Starfish and D-Orbit faced additional challenges because Otter Pup’s engines were broken and the two companies are headquartered in Washington state and Italy, respectively.
The team brought in Leo Labs, a space situational awareness startup, to help refine the spacecraft’s orbit estimates and ensure the two companies had the best chance of a successful rendezvous.
The effort paid off: On April 19, after passing Otter Pup in increasingly narrow orbits, the ION moved from D-orbit to within a kilometer of it; Otter Pup then successfully pointed at the spacecraft and took a picture using onboard cameras.
Although Otter Pup was unable to attempt a docking, Link and Starfish co-founder Trevor Bennett both emphasized that the mission provided the team with plenty of valuable data for future missions.
“These images don’t just confirm a core function [captured by Otter Pup] will provide invaluable data for our ongoing GNC software development,” Bennett said in a statement. “The continuation of Otter Pup was very valuable for us. It allowed us to expand our experience in satellite operations and test and validate software and hardware in orbit, including the camera system used to capture these images.”
The company will launch a second otter pup into space in the first half of 2025. Starfish’s larger plan is to use its satellites to extend the lifespan of large geostationary satellites and to dispose of satellites in lower orbits after they reach the end of their useful life. Beyond these commercial use cases, Starfish’s technology hasn’t gone unnoticed by the U.S. Department of Defense: Just on Monday, the company quietly won a $37 million contract. While the startup can’t provide too many details about the exact mission requirements, a Defense Department announcement states that the award is intended to “improve on-orbit maneuverability and enable the docking and maneuvering of Department of Defense assets in orbit by 2026 for dynamic space operations.” .