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Starfish Space and D-Orbit complete orbital rendezvous, bringing Otter Pup mission to a close
Starfish Space’s ambitious first mission to demonstrate on-orbit rendezvous and docking tech has officially come to a close, with the startup managing to
While the company managed to slow the spin — itself a phenomenal feat of quick thinking and engineering — another issue cropped up a few months later, when the on-board electric propulsion thrusters provided by French startup Exotrail suffered an anomaly and stopped working. That’s no easy task: they had to find an operational spacecraft with no conflicting mission objectives, and that had the requisite delta-V — that is, enough onboard propulsion — to maneuver close enough to Otter Pup. The team brought in the space situational awareness startup Leo Labs to help refine the spacecraft’s orbital estimates and ensure the two companies had the best chance of a successful rendezvous.
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