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Starfish Space’s first Otter spacecraft goes into orbit

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rising into blue sky
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket rises from its California launch pad, sending 130 payloads into orbit. (Credit: SpaceX via X)

Starfish Space’s first full-scale Otter satellite servicing vehicle went into orbit today, marking a milestone for the Tukwila, Wash.-based startup.

The Otter spacecraft was among 130 payloads launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Otter is roughly the size of a kitchen oven, with solar arrays that were folded up for launch.

Other payloads on the satellite rideshare mission, known as Transporter-18, included Cowboy Space’s first power-beaming satellite, a prototype for Google’s AI data-center constellation, and a NASA-funded probe that will track the energy released by galaxies and supernovas.

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Universe Today

Starship drops off satellites during its first orbital flight

Starship rocket rises from Texas launch pad
SpaceX's Starship rocket rises from its Texas launch pad for its first orbital flight. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX sent its Starship super-rocket on its first orbital flight — a shorter-than-planned test mission that put operational Starlink satellites into orbit for the first time.

The 407-foot-tall rocket rose from its launch pad at SpaceX’s Starbase complex on the Texas coast at 7:50 a.m. CT (5:50 a.m. PT) today and completed nearly two orbits. This was the 14th flight in the Starship test program, but all previous flights had been suborbital.

On its way up, one of the 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines on Starship’s Super Heavy booster shut down prematurely. Despite the single engine failure, the climb to space proceeded as planned, and the booster executed a safe splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

One of the six engines on the upper stage, also known as Ship, also experienced an early shutdown. For a few minutes, SpaceX’s team debated whether to go ahead with a follow-up orbital insertion burn or end the test flight without deploying satellites. The team decided to go ahead, and the 19-second burn proceeded smoothly.

“Starship is orbital,” Mission Control declared, drawing cheers from SpaceX employees watching the live video feed.

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Starfish Space gets set for debut of flagship spacecraft

Austin Link and Otter mockup at Seattle Aquarium celebration
Starfish Space co-founder Austin Link shows off a mockup of the Otter spacecraft at the Seattle Aquarium. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Space is ready for the first launch of its full-size Otter space servicing vehicle, following two orbital tests of scaled-down prototypes.

Otter is due to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than Oct. 1, riding into orbit alongside other payloads on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 satellite rideshare mission. The 660-pound (300-kilogram) spacecraft, roughly the size of a kitchen oven (plus solar arrays), will demonstrate technologies for inspecting inoperable satellites during NASA’s $15 million Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability mission (SSPICY).

“This is the moment Otter becomes real,” Starfish co-founder Austin Link said today in a news release. “It’s no longer something we’re designing for the future. The first Otter is built, it has a customer and a mission, and it’s going to space.”

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An unusual $300M deal aims to fund orbital computing

Illustration: Sophia Space satellites lined up in orbit
An artist’s conception shows several Sophia Space satellites in orbit. (Sophia Space Illustration)

Sophia Space and SLI, an aerospace leasing venture based in Washington, D.C., say they’ve agreed on a $300 million asset-financing framework that will support the creation of a 10-satellite constellation for high-performance computing.

The details of the arrangement are as notable as the bottom line: Sophia Space will build the satellites, leveraging the startup’s patented TILE technology for modular in-space data processing. SLI will purchase the satellites under the terms of a financing agreement.

“SLI as the lessor will purchase the satellites from Sophia, hold title to the assets, and lease them to the end user on a long-term basis in exchange for fixed monthly or quarterly payments,” Max Yergan, the company’s senior vice president for investments, explained in an email. “Full control and operational responsibility for the assets sit with Sophia and the end user, who will determine between them how operations are handled.”

Sophia’s satellites are designed to deliver on-orbit edge data services for a wide variety of applications.

“The demand we are underwriting exists today,” Yergan said. “Earth observation, weather and supply-chain analytics, disaster response and defense ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] users all face the same constraint now: They collect far more data than they can bring to the ground, and its value decays while it waits to be downlinked. Processing on orbit addresses that directly.”

The constellation’s first launch is targeted for as early as 2028. SLI would pay out funds linked to development and launch milestones, all the way through verification that the on-orbit network performs to pre-agreed standards.

The arrangement is laid out in a non-binding letter of support. “The non-binding nature is a reflection of where we are in the process, and is typical of large asset financings,” Yergan explained. “It sets the commercial framework so both parties can commit resources while definitive documentation is negotiated.”

Leasing arrangements are often seen in aviation and the maritime industry, but this is a relatively new concept for satellite ventures.

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Cowboy Space to build data centers in the Seattle area

Illustration: Cowboy Space data center satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows one of Cowboy Space’s data centers in Earth orbit. (Cowboy Space via LinkedIn)

California-based Cowboy Space is leasing a 291,035-square-foot industrial facility in Kent, Wash., to support the production of hardware for its planned constellation of AI data center satellites, according to the company that arranged the lease.

“According to Newmark Research, the transaction is the largest industrial lease in the Puget Sound region year-to-date,” Newmark, the real estate broker for the deal, said in a news release. Newmark represented CenterPoint Properties, Cowboy’s new landlord.

The facility at 7650 S. 228th St. previously served as a Costco distribution center. “This building was originally designed for large-scale logistics users, but Cowboy Space recognized the opportunity to reimagine it as a highly specialized production facility,” said Taylor Hoff, a vice chairman at Newmark’s office in Bellevue, Wash.

Newmark said Cowboy Space plans to convert the facility into a manufacturing operation supporting space and rocket development. The operation is expected to add 300 jobs, Newmark said. Cowboy is currently listing 46 Kent-based positions in its careers database.

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Starcloud raises $250M more for orbital data centers

Illustration showing Earth's disk with a satellite circling over it
Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip, the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, is set to be used on Starcloud’s future satellites. (Nvidia Illustration)

Starcloud says it has raised $250 million in new funding to support the creation of a constellation of data center satellites powered by Nvidia’s next-generation AI chips.

The Series A extension funding round was led by Manhattan West, with participation from existing investors including Benchmark, EQT, Soma, NFX and 776. Among the new investors joining for this round are Nvidia, Cisco Investments, Cedar Capital, Goanna Capital and Standard Capital.

Founded in 2024, Starcloud is headquartered in Redmond, Wash., and is building production lines for its Starcloud-3 spacecraft at a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Woodinville, Wash. The newly announced round brings the startup’s total capital raised to $450 million, with a post-money valuation of $2.3 billion.

Nvidia’s participation in the funding round brings Starcloud’s collaboration with the computer-chip titan to a new level. In November 2025, Starcloud flew Nvidia’s H100 GPU to orbit for the first time. It used the chip to train a large language model called NanoGPT — marking a milestone in space-based AI data processing.

Starcloud plans to equip future satellites with Nvidia’s Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, which Nvidia says will deliver 25 times as much in-space compute capability as the H100. Starcloud’s satellites will serve as an early flight platform for the space-rated chips.

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Get a sneak peek at Portal Space Systems’ first satellite

Portal CEO Jeff Thornburg stretching out arms as he shows off Starburst-1 satellite in lab
Portal Space Systems CEO Jeff Thornburg shows off the Starburst-1 satellite in the company’s Bothell lab. (Portal Space Systems Photo)

BOTHELL, Wash. — Portal Space Systems is getting ready to send its first Starburst spacecraft to Florida for a milestone launch, and at the same time is fleshing out its plans for launching an even more capable spacecraft known as Supernova.

Both spacecraft are designed to offer rapid maneuverability in orbit at low cost, and both will take advantage of Portal’s core technologies, supply chains and manufacturing processes. But Supernova will be heavier than Starburst (1,100 pounds vs. 600 pounds) and will make use of an innovative solar thermal propulsion system to move within a wider range of orbits.

Seventeen months after the official opening of Portal’s 8,000-square-foot development and testing lab in Bothell, I was invited back to the facility to get a peek at Starburst-1 — and get a sense of how far the startup has come.

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Blue Origin unveils its Quartz network of ground stations

Bulb-shaped radio antenna dome with ocean in background
Blue Origin’s ground station network includes a radio antenna in Bermuda. (Blue Origin Photo)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it has successfully tested the first three ground stations for a global communications network that will support the company’s missions in Earth orbit and beyond.

The Quartz network’s first ground stations are in Bermuda, New Zealand and Australia. Blue Origin says the network is due to expand to nine sites by the end of the year.

“Ground communications infrastructure has historically been one of the most fragmented and costly elements of space operations, for national security programs, civil and commercial operators alike,” Tory Bruno, president of national security at Blue Origin, said today in a news release. “With Quartz, we’ve built a single, fully integrated network that changes that equation. One interface, one operations team, transparent pricing and a security architecture built to meet the most demanding mission requirements.”

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K2 Space raises $500M to build big, powerful satellites

K2 Space's Gravitas satellite undergoing integration on a shop floor
K2 Space’s Gravitas satellite, shown here during final integration, was launched in March. (K2 Space Photo via PRNewswire)

K2 Space, a California-based satellite company that recently set up an engineering hub in Seattle, has announced a $500 million funding round at a $6.8 billion valuation.

The Series D round was led by Kleiner Perkins and ICONIQ, with participation from CapitalG, Lightspeed, Altimeter, Spark Capital, Sands Capital, ARK Invest, T. Rowe Price Associates and other existing investors.

Since its founding in 2022, K2 Space has raised more than $1 billion in capital and secured an equivalent amount in contracts.

While many satellite companies focus on miniaturization, K2 Space is going big on satellite mass and power. K2 had its first “mega-class” satellite, dubbed Gravitas, launched into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in March. The two-ton, 20-kilowatt satellite carried a dozen undisclosed payload modules for multiple customers, including the Department of Defense.

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Sophia Space wins a patent for cool orbital data centers

Illustration: Data center satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows a data center satellite that makes use of Sophia Space’s tile-based architecture. (Sophia Space Illustration)

Sophia Space has secured a patent for a technology that could pave the way for solar-powered orbital data centers that passively radiate excess heat into space.

Developed in partnership with Caltech, Sophia’s architecture tackles a major hurdle in orbital computing: how to cool thousands of chips running artificial intelligence applications in space.

Traditional designs rely on satellite-wide radiator systems with heat pumps and circulating fluids. In contrast, Sophia plans to build flat, modular tiles equipped with four processors each. The tiles draw power from solar cells on their sunlit side, and shed heat into the cold vacuum of space from their dark side.

This approach avoids having to put a cooling system in the central bus of every satellite, said Leon Alkalai, Sophia Space’s co-founder, chairman and chief technology officer. “I think you will find in time that our approach is much more favorable when we scale to larger wattage systems, because bringing everything into a bus can only be done until a certain level, and then it becomes almost impossible to do,” he told me. “Our benefit is really scalability.”

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