Starfish Space, a new entrant into the orbital tug & servicing industry, has successfully raised $14 million in new investment capital, in addition to the $7 million it had raised in a previous fund-raising round.
The company hopes to launch a test satellite later this year, dubbed Otter Pup, which will undock from the orbital tub of another company, Launcher Space, do maneuvers, and then redock.
Starfish’s plan calls for Otter Pup to be sent into orbit this summer as a rideshare payload on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission. The spacecraft will be deployed from Launcher Space’s Orbiter space tug, and then will execute a series of maneuvers with a xenon-fueled electric propulsion system to move away from the tug.
If all goes well, the Otter Pup will return to the vicinity of the Orbiter, and then use an electrostatic-based capture mechanism to latch onto a docking target on the space tug. It could take months to test out the Otter Pup’s systems and tweak them as necessary for its test hookups.
Though the company says it will offer tug services once operational, it appears it is mostly aiming for the satellite robotic servicing market. It, like Astroscale, has developed its own docking capture device, which it will try to convince satellite companies to attach to their satellites. It will then use this to dock and service those satellites. Since these capture devices are proprietary, the number that each company gets onboard satellites will determine that company’s future sales.
This orbital servicing industry appears to be growing very quickly, now that launch costs have come down by about 90% since the arrival of SpaceX. For example, the orbital tug company Momentus is getting ready to launch its third mission.
