Starfish Space Loses First Otter Servicing Craft in Orbit
A single bus fault just ended a milestone mission before it could begin. Starfish Space announced that its Otter 24C satellite suffered a fatal anomaly in low Earth orbit, cutting off all communication during the initial checkouts.
A single bus fault just ended a milestone mission before it could begin. Starfish Space announced that its Otter 24C satellite suffered a fatal anomaly in low Earth orbit, cutting off all communication during the initial checkouts. The 335-kilogram spacecraft launched in October on a SpaceX rideshare flight to test orbital rendezvous and debris-inspection tech for NASA.
Instead of inspecting up to four dead targets over two years, the unrecoverable vehicle died in its commissioning phase. A system provided by California company Astro Digital suffered an error in its fault protection. That software bug turned off the satellite radio and locked out engineers from regaining control.
Starfish, NASA, and Astro Digital confirmed the craft is lost for good. That leaves a major gap for a startup aiming to build a routine market for orbital repairs and refuelings. Our read suggests that leaning on third-party bus suppliers introduces high risks for hardware debutants trying to scale fast.
Yet the company is already pushing ahead with a separate prototype in orbit.
That second craft, Otter Pup 2, recently maneuvered within 25 meters of a Gilmour Space satellite to test autonomous navigation.
Watch to see if that surviving mission can achieve the first-ever commercial docking in low Earth orbit.
The story so far
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Original publication: 9 November 2026 23:30
