Starfish Space’s $15M NASA Inspection Mission Ends After Otter Spacecraft Loses Contact
Starfish Space has lost contact with its Otter 24C spacecraft, prematurely ending a $15 million NASA mission to inspect inoperable satellites in low Earth orbit. The failure, caused by an error in the satellite bus fault protection system that turned off the radio, is deemed unrecoverable. While the mission did not achieve all objectives, Starfish and NASA plan to use lessons learned to improve future orbital servicing capabilities.