A quiet but significant shift is underway in space transportation, driven by small companies proving that complex orbital maneuvers no longer require massive spacecraft or massive budgets. The change became visible when a compact orbital transfer vehicle called Mira, built by Impulse Space, launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and successfully deployed multiple CubeSats before demonstrating high-thrust maneuvers in orbit, tells Ars Technica.
The real breakthrough came months later when Impulse did something unusual. It handed operational control of Mira to another startup, Starfish Space. Rather than using Impulse’s own flight software, Starfish installed its autonomous guidance, navigation, and control system and took over the spacecraft remotely. The goal was ambitious: prove that a single lightweight camera, paired with closed-loop software, could autonomously guide a spacecraft to rendezvous with another object in orbit.
Starfish used Mira to approach an earlier Mira vehicle launched in 2023 that no longer has active attitude control. As the two spacecraft closed within 20 kilometers, control was handed entirely to the onboard computer. The system autonomously guided the vehicle to within 1,250 meters of its target, validating Starfish’s rendezvous and proximity operations software in real flight conditions. The entire effort moved from concept to execution in under a year.
The success gives Starfish confidence in its upcoming Otter spacecraft, designed to provide propulsion and life-extension services to operational satellites. While orbital rendezvous is not new, past commercial examples such as Northrop Grumman’s MEV-1 relied on large, expensive spacecraft with complex sensor suites. Starfish argues its approach is an order of magnitude cheaper by relying on minimal hardware and smarter software.
Together, Impulse Space’s flexible transfer vehicle and Starfish Space’s autonomous control system point to a future where in-space transportation and satellite servicing become routine, affordable, and far more accessible than before.