Good morning. Today marks 40 years since Guion Bluford became the first African American in space during his mission aboard the Challenger. Hats off to this trailblazer.

Today’s newsletter:
🦦 Otter Pup’s detumbling
🤖 GITAI raises $15M
💸 The term sheet

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Starfish Breaks Otter Pup’s Death Spiral

Otter Pup is back, baby.

The spacecraft from Starfish Space tumbled through space for about six weeks after an emergency deployment from Launcher’s Orbiter craft in June. Yesterday, the Seattle-based startup announced that the craft is finally stabilized.

“Less than two months after being deployed with rotation rates 100 times greater than normal operating conditions, Otter Pup has been fully stabilized by Starfish,” the company wrote in a statement. “This is a significant achievement not only for Starfish, but also for the field of on-orbit satellite control broadly.”

The Otter Pup story: Otter Pup is the bite-sized precursor mission to a planned fleet of Otter servicing craft. It’s designed to test three Starfish-built (and nautically-named) technologies:

1. Nautilus, the electrostatic docking mechanism

2. Cephalopod, the guidance control software

3. Cetacean, the relative navigation software

Otter Pup was supposed to deploy from the Orbiter craft, which is operated by Vast-owned Launcher, then maintain a safe distance for a while before performing a series of docking maneuvers in orbit.

Slow your roll: An anomaly with Orbiter after deployment from the Transporter-8 mission in June led Launcher to eject Otter Pup in an attempt to salvage the mission. That deployment left the craft tumbling uncontrollably at nearly a full rotation per second.

Detumbling the spacecraft was no easy task. The Starfish team started off sending commands to validate the craft could receive them. Atmospheric drag and electromagnetic influences were slowing the spin, but not enough.

Starfish aligned the craft’s three torque rods to push against the Earth’s magnetic field by building an algorithm that would check on the craft’s spin rate and alignment ~10x per second, which slowed the spin some. In the process, Otter Pup essentially died twice, with its power supply dropping so low that the main flight computer turned off.

• Starfish performed a series of emergency maneuvers in partnership with Astro Digital and ASI to get Otter Pup facing back toward the Sun and back to life.

On July 31, Starfish’s own control algorithm kicked in. By Aug. 3, the craft was officially stable.

What’s next? Otter Pup may have another chance at life, but the same can’t be said for Launcher’s Orbiter craft. Orbiter was originally going to play host to the docking demonstration, and its loss puts the overall mission in jeopardy. Otter Pup also wasn’t designed to spin so fast for so long, and those conditions might have damaged the satellite.

“Many hurdles remain before Otter Pup can attempt its historic docking mission, including the search for a new docking partner and an extensive checkout to validate the health of onboard systems,” Starfish wrote in its statement.

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GITAI Raises $15M for Space Robots

Space robotics startup GITAI announced yesterday it had raised an additional $15M of funding, bringing its total Series B extension round to $45M after securing $30M in May.

The funding for the Japan-based company—which included equity from Green Co-Invest, Pacific Bays Capital, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and a MUFG Bank loan—will be used to expand its US operations and support a lunar surface demo.

GITAI expanded into the US in June 2022 with the opening of a Los Angeles office. The company recently completed its manufacturing setup and is ramping up hiring.

Robot workforce: GITAI is developing a robotic workforce to perform maintenance, construction, and navigation tasks in orbit, as well as on the Moon and Mars, with the aim of slashing operational costs by a factor of 100. The company is building two products:

• Inchworm: A two-meter-long robotic arm designed to perform maintenance, repair, drilling, and welding in space. The jack-of-all-trades arm can move along surfaces in a slinky-like walk.

• Lunar rover: A rover to be used for lunar locomotion and resource extraction. The startup has been testing the vehicle in the Mojave Desert.

New cadets: GITAI plans to launch the Inchworm to the ISS on an upcoming mission and deploy the arm outside the Bishop Airlock. After development and testing, the startup plans to combine the mechanical arm with the rover and launch the Moon’s first robot employee by 2026.

See You in DC!

Join us at our second Space Capitol event, where we will bring together emerging space companies and the government for a thought leadership and networking experience.

Space Opportunities

Here are the top government opportunities for space companies this week, as compiled by our partner TZero.

🛰️ DIU has released the Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) solicitation seeking innovative rapid response on-orbit concepts. Responses are due Sept. 7.

🌍 ODNI has released an RFI seeking industry feedback on how the intelligence community and DoD can more effectively procure commercial remote sensing capabilities and services. Responses are due Sept. 22.

🌚 NASA has released an updated New Frontiers 5 announcement of opportunity. Responses are due Sept. 29.

Additional opportunities and details can be found in the TZero Space Tracker, which is now offering new lower pricing and a one-month free trial.

In Other News

• India plans to name the Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing site Shiv Shakti Point.

• Chandrayaan-3 has taken a preliminary read of the elements on the lunar surface.

• Russia played down its Luna-25 hard landing, saying it was “nothing terrible.”

• SaxaVord does not need a license to launch the HyImpulse SR75 rocket.

The View from Space

Maxar’s EO satellites spotted Burning Man’s Black Rock City from orbit.