Eleven months after launch, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup 2 satellite is finally kicking its test mission into high gear, closing in for a rendezvous with a newly designated target.
If all goes according to plan, Otter Pup 2 will dock with Australia-based Gilmour Space’s ElaraSat satellite sometime in the next few months. ElaraSat became the new target after earlier plans to connect with a D-Orbit ION satellite were scrubbed for undisclosed reasons.
Trevor Bennett, one of the founders of Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space, said ElaraSat was launched on the same SpaceX satellite rideshare mission that sent Otter Pup 2 into orbit last June. Gilmour Space was “more than willing and excited to jump on and do something a little bit ambitious and crazy with us,” he told me.
