Intelsat<\/b> has ordered a satellite servicing mission from Starfish Space<\/b> for its Otter servicing vehicle. This will be Starfish\u2019s first mission to provide services to a commercial satellite operator with Otter.<\/p>\n
Under the deal announced Wednesday, Starfish will begin its first servicing mission for Intelsat in 2026. At first, Otter will dock with and maneuver a retired Intelsat satellite in Geostationary graveyard orbit in order to validate the Otter approach and docking. <\/p>\n
Then, Otter will dock with an unspecified Intelsat satellite and provide life extension services, using its onboard propulsion system to extend the satellite\u2019s life in orbit. <\/p>\n
Intelsat has been a leader in investing in satellite servicing missions in GEO. The operator made history with Northrop Grumman\u2019s SpaceLogistics subsidiary in 2020 when SpaceLogistics successfully docked two commercial satellites in orbit for the first time. Intelsat currently has two satellites being serviced with Mission Extension Vehicles (MEV) MEV-1 and MEV-2, and also has two future Mission Extension Pods (MEP) under contract with SpaceLogistics. <\/p>\n
Jean-Luc Froeliger, Intelsat\u2019s senior vice president of Space Systems, said in an email to Via Satellite<\/i> that Intelsat performed a thorough evaluation of Starfish\u2019s technology, and docking with a satellite in graveyard orbit mitigates the risk before docking with an active satellite. <\/p>\n
Intelsat and Starfish said this collaboration will expand the market for satellite servicing. <\/p>\n
\u201cLife extension is a new tool that we are using in our satellite replacement strategy where it makes business sense. This is not the standard, but an option that we can use when applicable,\u201d Froeliger told Via Satellite<\/i>. \u201cStarfish presented an attractive business solution with an acceptable schedule and well managed development risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starfish Space was in the news last year for its work to save the first \u2018Otter Pup\u2019 mission, which fell into an uncontrollable rotation after it was deployed. While Otter Pup didn\u2019t complete its primary mission, Starfish Space executed a successful in-space rendezvous between with a D-Orbit satellite in early 2024. In May, Starfish Space won a Space Systems Command contract to dock with national security space assets. <\/p>\n
\u201cStarfish Space is delighted to be supporting Intelsat with services provided by Otter,\u201d Dr. Trevor Bennett, co-founder of Starfish Space said in a news release. \u201cThey are an incredible team at the forefront of the industry and the Otter will help them deliver even more to their customers. We\u2019re also excited that this will be the first of many Otters that will make on-orbit servicing a standard part of satellite operations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Intelsat has ordered a satellite servicing mission from Starfish Space for its Otter servicing vehicle. This will be Starfish\u2019s first mission to provide services to a commercial satellite operator with Otter. Under the deal announced Wednesday, Starfish will begin its first servicing mission for Intelsat in 2026. At first, Otter will dock with and maneuver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}