After seven years, a spacecraft company is releasing its Otters into the wild
Summary
Starfish Space, founded in 2019, is launching its Otter spacecraft to help inspect and manage satellites in orbit. The first Otter mission will demonstrate the spacecraft's ability to approach and inspect older, inactive satellites, funded by NASA with a $15 million contract.Key Facts
- Starfish Space was started in October 2019 by two engineers from Blue Origin.
- The company's goal is to help manage the growing number of satellites in low-Earth orbit.
- Otter is a small spacecraft about the size of a large washing machine and weighs around 350 kg.
- The first Otter mission, called SSPICY, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this fall.
- NASA is funding the mission, marking its first commercial debris inspection contract.
- Otter will approach multiple US-owned, defunct satellites up close to collect data.
- Starfish has about 120 employees and has raised $150 million so far.
- Previous demo missions had mixed results, with some failures and some successful close approaches to target satellites.
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