Starfish Space's Otter 24C spacecraft, flying NASA's Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability (SSPICY) mission, cannot be recovered, the agency and the company have concluded, citing an issue that blocks communications between the satellite and ground operators. Troubleshooting traced the problem to the craft's fault protection system, the onboard software for detecting and responding to problems, which NASA says is keeping the radio erroneously turned off.
The mission launched Oct. 1. Starfish made initial contact with Otter but lost it during commissioning, the early phase when systems are switched on and instruments calibrated, and has been unable to reestablish two-way communication. The demonstration was meant to "navigate toward and inspect inoperable space objects of U.S. origin in low Earth orbit" while testing propulsion, guidance, navigation and control technologies and an articulating robotic boom, NASA said.
Starfish's technologies were integrated onto a spacecraft bus, the core platform that carries a satellite's mission hardware, developed by Astro Digital of Santa Clara, California, according to the agency's mission page.