The satellite servicing vehicle marks Starfish’s transition from technology development to delivering services for customers in orbit
SEATTLE, Wash., September 24, 2026 — Starfish Space announced its first Otter satellite servicing vehicle is going to space, revealing the news during a celebration at the Seattle Aquarium on September 23 that brought together hundreds of guests from across the space industry. Otter is scheduled to launch no earlier than October 2026 aboard the Transporter-18 rideshare mission with SpaceX.
The launch represents a defining moment for Starfish. After building and demonstrating the technologies required for autonomous satellite servicing, the company is preparing to put its first Otter spacecraft to work for a customer in orbit.
The first Otter will conduct Starfish’s Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability (SSPICY) mission for NASA. Following launch, Starfish will commission the spacecraft and prepare to provide commercial services in low Earth orbit.
“This is the moment Otter becomes real. 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. That’s a huge moment for Starfish and for everyone who has worked to get us here,” said Austin Link, co-founder of Starfish.
Otter is designed to do life extension and end-of-life disposal missions. With a flexible architecture, Otters can operate within multiple orbital regimes and support spacecraft not originally designed to be serviced, maximizing the value satellite operators can derive from their assets.
The Otter program is the first step in Starfish’s long-term plan to build the orbital infrastructure needed to support humanity’s expansion into space. By making spacecraft serviceable after launch, Starfish aims to enable a new approach to how satellites are designed, manufactured and operated.
“Humanity’s ambitions in space are growing, but the infrastructure to support those ambitions is still in its infancy,” said Trevor Bennett, co-founder of Starfish Space. “We built Otter because we believe spacecraft should be serviceable after they launch. If we can make that routine, it opens up an entirely different way of designing, operating and sustaining spacecraft, and that is the future Starfish is working toward.”
Media inquiries:
Jen Thompson
jen@starfishspace.com
503.724.4076
About Starfish Space:
Starfish Space, based in Tukwila, Washington, provides satellite servicing missions with its Otter servicing vehicle, including life extension missions for geostationary satellites and disposal missions for low Earth orbit satellites. Founded in 2019, Starfish has raised over $150M in venture capital funding and built a team of engineers with experience spanning satellite guidance, navigation, control, and autonomous robotics. Starfish has launched several missions to-date, and is focused on delivering Otter satellite servicing missions for SES, NASA, the U.S. Space Force, the Space Development Agency, and others. For more information, please visit starfishspace.com.
About SSPICY:
SSPICY is being developed by Starfish Space through a Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award, funded and managed by NASA’s Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the agency’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD). SSDS is based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
