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Starfish Space raises $14M for satellite servicing vehicles

Illustration: Otter servicing vehicle docked to satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows an Otter servicing vehicle docked to a larger satellite. (Starfish Space Illustration)

Starfish Space, a Seattle-area startup founded by two veterans of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, has raised $14 million in funding to support its plans to develop spacecraft capable of hooking up with bigger satellites to boost their orbits — or safely dispose of them.

The Series A funding round was led by Munich Re Ventures, with additional participation from Toyota Ventures and previous investors including PSL Ventures, NFX and MaC VC. “MRV is excited to back this talented team of engineers, scientists and operators as they aim to open up the in-space economy,” Peter Ortez, a principal at Munich Re Ventures, said today in a news release.

Starfish Space has now attracted a little over $21 million in total investment, including pre-seed and seed funding rounds, said Austin Link, who co-founded the company in 2019 with fellow Blue Origin alumnus Trevor Bennett.

Link said the fresh funding will go toward completing the development of the Otter Pup, a prototype satellite servicing vehicle that’s about the size of a microwave oven, as well as the full-size Otter spacecraft. One of top priorities for the company, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash., is to add to its current headcount of 26 full-time employees.

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Study documents satellite interference with Hubble

Satellite streaks on Hubble images
Satellite streaks cross these images from the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA / ESA / STScI / Kruk et al. / Nature)

An analysis of more than 100,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope, conducted with the aid of artificial intelligence and hundreds of human volunteers, confirms that satellites including SpaceX’s Starlink spacecraft are increasingly interfering with astronomical observations.

The images used in the study, which is the subject of a paper published today by Nature Astronomy, largely predate the deployment of Starlink broadband internet satellites. But the trend line suggests that more and more satellites will cause more and more interference.

“This is an attempt to define a baseline before the swarm of artificial satellites for future follow-up studies of the impact of megaconstellations on space-based astronomy,” said the research team, which is led by Sandor Kruk of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

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FCC clears Amazon’s satellite maintenance plan

Illustration: Vulcan liftoff with Amazon satellites
An artist’s conception shows a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket launching Amazon’s Kuiper satellites. (Amazon Illustration)

The Federal Communications Commission says Amazon’s 3,236-satellite Project Kuiper constellation is fully cleared for deployment after the company filed an acceptable plan for dealing with the risks of orbital debris.

This week’s order follows up on the conditional approval that the FCC issued in 2020. At the time, the FCC said the plans for Kuiper could proceed, but Amazon had to update its orbital debris mitigation plan to address concerns about collision risks, coordination with other satellite systems, and procedures for satellite disposal.

After a back-and-forth with the Kuiper team and its rivals at SpaceX and Viasat, as well as interested parties at NASA and other federal agencies, the FCC it was satisfied with Amazon’s modifications.

“Our action will allow Kuiper to begin deployment of its constellation in order to bring high-speed broadband connectivity to customers around the world,” the agency said in the order it adopted Feb. 8.

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Spaceflight Inc. goes through a changing of the guard

Sherpa-ES space tug
An artist's conception shows Spaceflight Inc.'s Sherpa-ES space tug, which can put payloads in lunar orbit. (Spaceflight Inc. Illustration)

Space industry veteran Tiphaine Louradour is taking the helm as CEO of Spaceflight Inc., a launch and in-space transportation services provider based in Bellevue, Wash.

She succeeds Curt Blake, who has served as Spaceflight CEO and president since 2013. Blake guided the company through a dynamic period in the rise of the satellite rideshare market — a period that included the company’s acquisition by Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Yamasa Co. in 2020 and the development of the Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle for satellite deployment in low Earth orbit, or LEO.

Louradour has 25 years of experience as a business leader, with more than 15 years of that experience in the space industry. She was president of International Launch Services starting in 2020 — and previously served in a variety of executive roles at United Launch Alliance, including president of global commercial sales.

In a news release, Louradour said she was excited to join Spaceflight Inc. “My goal in leading this organization is to build on its groundbreaking achievements and expand the launch and on-orbit service offerings beyond LEO,” she said. “I’m very much looking forward to working with the team, as well as its customers and partners, to continue to evolve Spaceflight and especially its Sherpa OTV program into its next phase of growth.”

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Microsoft and Viasat boost satellite internet links

Illustration: Viasat-3 satellite constellation in orbit
An artist’s conception shows the Viasat-3 satellite constellation in orbit. (Viasat Illustration)

Over the past five years, Microsoft’s Airband Initiative has helped bring internet access to more than 51 million people in rural America and around the world — and now a new partnership with Viasat aims to kick Airband into overdrive.

The partnership, announced today in conjunction with the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., will take advantage of Viasat’s satellite network to extend internet access to 10 million people globally, including 5 million in Africa. It’s part of a wider Airband campaign to help connect a quarter of a billion people, including 100 million in Africa, by the end of 2025.

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How data analysis is done on an orbiting satellite

Illustration: D-Orbit ION satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows D-Orbit’s ION spacecraft deploying smaller satellites. (D-Orbit Illustration)

For the past 10 months, Amazon Web Services has been running data through its cloud-based software platform on what’s arguably the world’s edgiest edge: a satellite in low Earth orbit.

The experiment, revealed today during AWS’ re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, is aimed at demonstrating how on-orbit processing can help satellite operators manage the torrents of imagery and sensor data generated by their spacecraft.

“Using AWS software to perform real-time data analysis onboard an orbiting satellite, and delivering that analysis directly to decision makers via the cloud, is a definite shift in existing approaches to space data management,” Max Peterson, AWS’ vice president of worldwide public sector, said today in a blog posting. “It also helps push the boundaries of what we believe is possible for satellite operations.”

AWS’ experiment was done in partnership with D-Orbit, an Italian-based company that focuses on space logistics and transportation; and with Unibap, a Swedish company that develops AI-enabled automation solutions for space-based as well as terrestrial applications.

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Starfish Space unveils plan to dock with a satellite

Otter Pup spacecraft mockup on stage at Museum of Flight, surrounded by attendees
A mockup of Starfish Space's Otter Pup spacecraft is unveiled at Seattle's Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Just three years after it was founded, a Tukwila, Wash.-based startup called Starfish Space is putting the pieces in place to demonstrate how a low-cost satellite can hook up with other spacecraft in orbit.

If next year’s experiment with a prototype satellite called Otter Pup succeeds, that could open the way for a fleet of bigger Otter spacecraft to take on bigger tasks, ranging from satellite servicing to on-orbit spacecraft assembly.

“I always have this vision of an orbital shipyard, where you could go and build the Starship Enterprise and go off and explore strange new worlds, right?” Starfish Space co-founder Trevor Bennett told me.

“I would love to see a future of ‘space Uber,’ where Otters could be up there and be on demand,” he said. “You could imagine texting an Otter to say, ‘Hey, a customer would love to have you over there.’ And then it sends a text back after it’s done its operation and says, ‘I’ve docked — what would you like to do next?’”

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Microsoft and Amazon join Pentagon networking effort

Microsoft illustration: Earth with satellites in orbit
The Pentagon is working with commercial ventures to upgrade space-based networks. (Microsoft Illustration)

Microsoft Azure Space, Amazon Web Services and Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite network are now among the Pentagon’s partners in a campaign to upgrade space- and ground-based communications infrastructure for national security purposes.

The Defense Innovation Unit has awarded contracts to those three Seattle-area business units — plus SpiderOak Mission Systems, a space cybersecurity venture based in Washington, D.C. — in the second phase of the Hybrid Space Architecture project. They join four awardees from the first phase: Aalyria, Anduril, Atlas and Enveil.

“Hybrid Space Architecture ventures into an experimental communications vision that connects users from around the globe using modern and future communications,” Steve Butow, director of DIU’s space portfolio, said today in a news release. “The additional four awards from this solicitation provide new capabilities while seamlessly integrating into this dynamic and innovative collective of information and networking infrastructure that will provide resilient communications, and future technologies access, worldwide and beyond.”

The focus of the Phase I effort was to create a “Hybrid Gateway Satellite” to prove out next-generation networking technologies. Phase II is aimed at expanding the operational network to link ground-based cloud and internet services with commercial satellite constellations to facilitate secure communications via a hybrid public-private network.

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Amazon readies factory to build Project Kuiper satellites

Worker at Project Kuiper R&D facility in Redmond, Wash.
Satellite development work is being done at Project Kuiper’s HQ in Redmond, Wash. (Amazon Photo)

Amazon says it’ll open a 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Wash., to manufacture thousands of satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation.

The factory will eventually turn out one to three satellites per day, Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president for devices and services, said today during a Washington Post online chat. “Maybe even a little more than that,” he added.

Eventually, Amazon plans to have 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit, and half of those spacecraft have to be launched by 2026 to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission’s license requirements.

In order to meet that schedule, “we have to build the manufacturing capabilities that look more like consumer electronics or automobiles and less like the traditional space industry,” Limp explained.

The new facility marks an expansion from Project Kuiper’s 219,000-square-foot research-and-development facility in Redmond, Wash. Limp said the “first phase” of satellite production is already underway in Redmond.

“We’ve started integration and final assembly of our first two prototype satellites,” he said. “Those should be done by the end of Q4, and we’re in test right now.”

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Amazon switches its first satellites to a new rocket

Illustration: Vulcan liftoff with Amazon satellites
An artist’s conception shows a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket launching Amazon’s Kuiper satellites. (Amazon Illustration)

The first two prototype satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet network are now due to launch on the first-ever flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket early next year, rather than on ABL Space Systems’ rocket.

Today’s announcement comes in the wake of schedule slips for ABL as well as for United Launch Alliance — slips that mean ULA’s Vulcan launch schedule lines up better with Amazon’s satellite deployment schedule.

The prototypes — known as Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2 — are designed to test how the different components of a full 3,236-satellite constellation will work together. Results of the test will help Amazon refine its design for the production satellites.

“Our prototype satellites will be ready this year, and we look forward to flying with ULA,” Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper, said today in an Amazon update.

The original plan called for the Kuipersats to launch this year on one of the first flights of ABL’s RS1 rocket — but California-based ABL ran into delays in its test program, resulting in schedule shifts. And this week, ULA said it would delay the debut of its next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket at the request of its primary payload customer, Astrobotic.

ULA said Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic asked for more time to finish work on its Peregrine lunar lander, which was chosen to fly to the moon as the first mission for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The launch had been set for late 2022, but it’s now planned for the first quarter of 2023. The Kuipersats will be sent into low Earth orbit as secondary payloads.

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