Starfish Space, based in Tukwila, Washington, is about to send its first full-size Otter servicing vehicle into orbit, after two rounds of testing with scaled-down prototypes. SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare is the ride, and liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base is set for no earlier than October 1.
The craft weighs 660 pounds and, before its solar arrays unfurl, is roughly the size of a kitchen oven. Its job is to show how a robotic inspector can examine satellites that no longer work, under NASA’s $15M Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability mission, or SSPICY. Commissioning comes first; after that the vehicle will close in on and observe several decommissioned satellites whose mass runs from hundreds of kilograms to multiple tons.
Starfish co-founder Austin Link framed the debut as a milestone: “This is the moment Otter becomes real,” he said. Co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire that the targets will be picked once the craft is in orbit, and that data on how NASA’s older spacecraft have held up will go back to the agency.
Two scaled-down Otter Pup prototypes have already flown, and one is now closing on a target with docking as the goal. At least six Otters are in the works, among them a disposal mission for the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency and servicing work in geostationary orbit. Headcount has passed 120, and Bennett said build speed, not demand, is the constraint. Each vehicle takes about a year and a half to manufacture, and shortening that is the next problem.
