The Kent, Washington-based startup was founded in 2019 by Austin Link and Trevor Bennett, two former Blue Origin engineers. The handful of successful servicing missions have historically been conducted by government entities like NASA, and the repairs were conducted by astronauts - for example, when NASA launched five crewed Space Shuttle missions to repair or replace systems on the Hubble Telescope in the 1990s.īut like everything else in the space industry, private industry has largely started taking up the problem of in-orbit servicing.
Essentially, once a spacecraft was launched, well - God’s speed. Servicing satellites used to be nigh impossible, due to the extreme costs associated with going to orbit. Satellite servicing company Starfish Space has closed $7 million in funding to accelerate the development of a space tug vehicle that can extend the life of spacecraft and get rid of orbital debris.
