Tukwila, Wash.-based Starfish Area has been awarded a $54.5 million contract to provide one other Otter satellite tv for pc servicing spacecraft for the U.S. Area Drive’s Area Programs Command.
The deal, introduced this week, builds on a $37.5 million Area Programs Command contract that was awarded in 2024 by the Division of the Air Drive’s Strategic Funding Enhance program, or STRATFI. This new contract is funded by a Pentagon program referred to as Speed up the Procurement and Fielding of Revolutionary Applied sciences, or APFIT.
Starfish famous that the award is the one APFIT contract issued to an area firm within the present cycle and ranks among the many largest in this system’s historical past.
Austin Hyperlink, co-founder of Starfish Area, mentioned his firm was “proud to develop our partnership with the Area Drive beneath the APFIT program.”
“APFIT is a key program in transitioning platforms like Otter from growth to deployed functionality,” Hyperlink mentioned right now in a information launch. “By means of dynamic area operations and autonomous augmented maneuver, we allow the Area Drive to maintain essential area belongings, improve resilience and preserve operational flexibility throughout evolving mission calls for.”
Like the sooner contract, the brand new one calls on Starfish to supply an Otter spacecraft for dynamic area operations in geosynchronous Earth orbit. Supply is scheduled for 2028, with an choice for 2 years of operational help.
Designed for autonomous inspection and docking, the Otter might be able to servicing satellites even when they weren’t initially constructed for on-orbit changes. Otter would be capable to transfer satellites into increased orbits to increase their lives, or nudge them into decrease orbits for secure disposal. Simply final month, Starfish secured a separate $52.5 million contract from the Area Drive’s Area Growth Company for army satellite tv for pc disposal.
A prototype referred to as Otter Pup 2 was launched final yr and has been present process orbital exams. Three full-scale Otters are at the moment being readied for launch — one for the Area Programs Command, one for a satellite tv for pc maneuvering demonstration funded by the SES satellite tv for pc firm, and one for a NASA-funded satellite tv for pc inspection mission.
Starfish Area was based in 2019 by Hyperlink and Trevor Bennett, each former engineers at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin area enterprise. In 2024, Starfish reported elevating $29 million in an funding spherical that enabled the corporate to finish the event of the primary three Otters. On the time, Starfish mentioned its whole cumulative funding amounted to about $50 million.
