Starfish Space

Type: Company (Satellite Servicing / Inspection — Seattle, WA)

Starfish Space builds the Otter — a small (oven-sized) servicing spacecraft that uses autonomous rendezvous and docking plus electric propulsion to inspect, dock with, service, or deorbit satellites not originally designed for servicing. In 2026 Starfish sits across all three demand sources for the emerging servicing market — a NASA inspection mission, a DoD servicing stack, and a dedicated Space Force servicing vehicle.

Otter Spacecraft

• Oven-sized small satellite; electric propulsion for efficient multi-target travel and for performing inspections.
• Designed to inspect, dock with, and service or deorbit satellites — including non-cooperative ones in GEO.

Programs

• SSPICY (NASA): $15M over 3 years to fly Otter to inspect multiple consenting US-owned defunct satellites, approaching within hundreds of meters to read spin rate, spin axis, and surface condition. First NASA-funded commercial debris inspection. Launches late 2026; inspections 2027. (NASA SSPICY)
• USSF-23 (Space Force): Otter serves as the servicing "space tug" in the DoD refueling stack alongside an Astroscale fuel-transfer spacecraft and an Orbit Fab depot — mating with the AFRL Tetra-5 client to refuel it. (State of ISAM 2026)
• Dedicated SSC Otter: $54.5M Space Systems Command contract (via the Pentagon's APFIT program; awarded Feb 7 2026) for a second, dedicated national-security servicing Otter — delivery 2028. One of the largest APFIT awards ever. (State of ISAM 2026)

Key Contributions

• Otter: electric-propulsion RPO platform maturing inspection + docking on non-cooperative satellites (NASA SSPICY)
• Named operator across NASA (SSPICY), DoD (USSF-23), and SSC ($54.5M dedicated Otter) servicing demand (State of ISAM 2026)

Mentioned In

• On-Orbit Servicing — Inspection/servicing tier
• Active Debris Removal — Debris inspection precursor to removal
• ISAM — In-Space Manufacturing — Servicing-tier operator

Related Entities

• NASA — SSPICY funder
• Space Force / SSC — USSF-23 + dedicated Otter customer
• Astroscale — Co-participant in USSF-23 refueling stack
• Orbit Fab — Depot in the USSF-23 stack
• Northrop Grumman — Servicing competitor (MRV)

Changelog

• 2026-06-24 — Initial compilation from NASA SSPICY + State of ISAM 2026 sources.