Starfish Space's Otter Pup 2 closes to 25 meters of its target and completes its penultimate phase
From the Space digest for Oct 27, 2026
What happened: Starfish Space announced on October 27 that Otter Pup 2 is now operating fully autonomously as close as 25 meters from Gilmour Space's ElaraSat, with imagery captured at a 33.6-meter separation, and has officially completed Characterize — the penultimate phase of its mission. Only one phase remains: attempting docking, which the company calls "a chance to make history."
What's genuinely new: The distance closes roughly eightfold from the ~200-meter autonomous hold announced October 15, and the closability demonstrated — imagery from 33.6 meters, intricate autonomous maneuvering — puts one step between the mission and its docking attempt, the milestone the servicing storyline has been watching for since Starfish's first full-scale Otter flew on Transporter-18.
Watch: The docking attempt itself, any independent confirmation of the close-approach distances, and the first full-scale Otter's own servicing mission.
Sources Starfish Space (via Jeff Foust)