Starfish Space loses contact with 1st 'Otter' servicing spacecraft, ending NASA tech-demo mission

Starfish Space’s ‘Otter’ spacecraft experienced an anomaly during operations in low Earth orbit on November 3, 2023. The incident resulted in a complete loss of communication between the spacecraft and ground control teams at Starfish Space headquarters in San Diego, California. This failure concluded the Otter mission, which was designed as a technology demonstration for NASA. The primary objective of the mission involved testing autonomous rendezvous and docking capabilities alongside robotic refueling techniques. Consequently, all planned demonstrations were unable to proceed following the operational issue that occurred with the servicing spacecraft.