Starfish Space

As we continue our fifth-anniversary celebration, we're excited to spotlight Nautilus - our capture mechanism that allows Otter to dock with a wide variety of client satellites. On our Otter Pup mission last year, we launched a prototype version of Nautilus which uses static electricity to adhere to flat, featureless surfaces on a client satellite. Earlier this year, Otter Pup captured this shot of Nautilus deployed in orbit:

Announcing $29M in new funding led by Shield Capital! This funding will support the development of our first Otter servicing vehicles, which will perform missions for Intelsat, the U.S. Space Force, and NASA. Full press release here: https://lnkd.in/gnCFf6H2

Starfish Space is proud to have been selected by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to conduct a mission concept study. This collaboration offers a valuable opportunity to assess how Otter can enhance our national space-based intelligence infrastructure.

Continuing Starfish’s fifth anniversary celebration, today we’re showcasing CEPHALOPOD, our autonomous guidance and control software. CEPHALOPOD leverages data from CETACEAN and other sources to plan and execute trajectories for Otter, enabling precise rendezvous and docking with client satellites. CEPHALOPOD is a modular piece of software, allowing it to integrate with a variety of satellite architectures while consistently ensuring safe, efficient, and reliable operations in orbit.

We’re celebrating five years of Starfish with a showcase of the technologies we’ve built to enable our Otter satellite servicing missions. Today, we’re highlighting CETACEAN, our relative navigation software. CETACEAN processes on-orbit imagery data to determine the positioning of a client satellite as Otter approaches it for rendezvous and docking. CETACEAN runs in real-time onboard Otter, ensuring our missions can be executed autonomously and with precision.

Five years ago, we were working in a public library—today, we're building Otters for NASA, the Space Force, and Intelsat. As we celebrate Starfish Space's 5-year anniversary, we're excited about the technologies we've developed and the upcoming Otter servicing missions they enable. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we showcase each of these technologies and unveil a new one!

Starfish Space has been awarded a mission study contract by the Space Development Agency. We look forward to analyzing how Otter could provide critical satellite disposal missions in support of our national space assets in low-Earth orbit.

Introducing SSPICY: We’re teaming up with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration to lead the agency’s first-ever commercial space debris inspection mission. Beginning in 2027, our SSPICY Otter will conduct close rendezvous and proximity operations with multiple NASA satellites, paving the way for future satellite inspection and disposal missions across low-Earth orbit. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gRdHsNXf

??? Announcing our first commercial Otter mission for Intelsat. We are proud to be providing satellite services to the largest geostationary satellite operator and a pioneering space company. Otter will maximize the value Intelsat’s satellites can deliver to their customers, starting in 2026.

Go behind the scenes with Christian Davenport from The Washington Post as he highlights the story of Otter Pup and Starfish. We couldn’t be more excited to share our journey with the world. ??????