Starfish Space shifts its position to an Australian satellite to demonstrate orbital docking

Eleven months after launch, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2 satellite is finally kicking its test mission into high gear, closing in on a rendezvous with a newly designated target.

If all goes according to plan, Otter Pup 2 will dock with Australia’s Gilmour Space satellite ElaraSat sometime in the next few months. ElaraSat became the new target after previous plans to connect with the D-Orbit ION satellite were thwarted for undisclosed reasons.

Trevor Bennett, co-founder of Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space, said ElaraSat was launched through the same SpaceX rideshare satellite mission that sent Otter Pup 2 into orbit last June. Gilmour Space was “willing and excited to jump in and do something ambitious and crazy with us,” he told GeekWire.

Mark Grimminck, head of satellites at Gilmour Space, said in an emailed statement that his company is “excited to support Starfish Space in this pioneering project.”

“Automated rendezvous and docking are capabilities that will revolutionize the future of sustainable space operations,” Grimminck said. “Congratulations to the Starfish team on this important milestone.”

The mission of Otter Pup 2 is to test the technology and procedures of a full-scale Otter Starfish spacecraft, intended to rendezvous with other satellites for testing, servicing or safe disposal. The first Otter Pup prototype had operational difficulties shortly after its launch in 2023 and was unable to perform satellite docking, but it was able to demonstrate some of the technology that Starfish developed to work closely.

An orbital test conducted last year in partnership with Impulse Space proved that Starfish’s guidance, navigation and control software could be used on a different company’s satellite to create an autonomous approach to another spacecraft in orbit. Now, Otter Pup 2 is ready to take on the important satellite docking.

Bennett said the satellite is still in good health even though it was launched a year ago. “Our goal is to continue to take steps as we have to keep the car healthy – for a year at least – and continue to do so over the next few months as we go through some of these important, critical steps to arrival,” he said.

The ability to switch targets from the D-Orbit satellite to ElaraSat is “a testament to how we designed Otter Pup and our other core technologies,” Bennett said.

“We can just change the clients and the roads, go and fire them, and have the power of the ride and the life of the car and the opportunity with our basic technology that allows us to just go out with an unmodified spacecraft,” he said.

For the past few months, the Starfish team has been guiding Otter Pup 2 into the right orbit to find ElaraSat. The next phase will be to close the gap between the two satellites to 6 miles (10 kilometers). Then Otter Pup 2 will switch to the acquisition phase. “Discovery is our stage where Otter Pup’s cameras start taking pictures of the big satellite every now and then — a lock, if you will — and you start moving very, very close,” Bennett said. “This is what will bring it down to a distance of a kilometer.”

Otter Pup 2 will fly itself around the ElaraSat to thoroughly test and calibrate the Otter Pup’s sensors and control system. The satellite will then close to attach itself to ElaraSat using an electrostatic docking mechanism.

“Our goal is to live stream this, the landing stage of these machines, and show the process as we enter the airport,” Bennett said. The real-time view will be a computer-generated animation based on telemetry received from Otter Pup 2. In that case, the actual footage from the meeting will be downloaded over time, Bennett said.

“We will share information as best we can throughout this process,” he said. “The spacecraft will prioritize safety and stability, so we’re going to make sure that what we can’t share, we’re going to share. … It’s going to be an exciting time to show real telemetry, real data, both visual and static.”

So what? “Good communication at one time or a short time is what we aim for as the main goal here,” said Bennett. “After that, if we still have a healthy car and we’re still sober from celebrating, I think it’s a good opportunity to think about what else we can do with that space.”

Starfish has been funding Otter Pup missions internally to gather the data needed to develop a full-scale Otter. Bennett declined to discuss the current status of the Otter development effort but said he would have “a lot more to share” in the coming days.

The company has already won several contracts for Otter’s on-orbit services, including:

• A $37.5 million contract from the US Space Force for a demonstration satellite dock, and a $54.5 million contract for tracking work.
• A $52.5 million Space Development Agency contract to launch military satellites.
• NASA’s $15 million contract to test satellites is gone.
• Commercial contract with SES to provide satellite life extension services.

Starfish was founded in 2019 by Bennett and Austin Link, both alumni of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture. The startup has raised more than $150 million in total investment, including the $111.7 million Series B funding round reported last month.