It may be happening quietly, but there is a revolution happening with space transportation, and it opens up a world of possibilities.
In January, a small spacecraft built by California-based company Impulse Space was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket along with a stack of other satellites. Upon reaching orbit, the rocket’s upper stage launched the satellites off to their various missions.
And so it went with the Impulse-built Mira spacecraft, known as an orbital transfer vehicle. Mira launched several small CubeSats and then performed several high-thrust maneuvers to demonstrate its capabilities. This was the second flight by the Mira spacecraft, so Impulse Space was eager to continue testing the vehicle in flight.
giving up control
All was well until this summer, when a funny incident happened. Impulse handed over control of the Mira to another company, which installed its own software package on the vehicle. And this other company, Starfish Space, took control.
It was a little strange, Eric Romo, Impulse Space’s president and chief operating officer, admitted in an interview.
Romo said, “I’ll go over to mission control, and our teams will be on a call together, and I’ll just stick my head in and say, ‘Hey, please don’t crash the spacecraft.'” “It was definitely a new thing.”
But Starfish Space did not crash Mira. Rather, it activated its camera on the spacecraft and began flying the craft. to what end? Founded in 2019, the Washington-based company wants to build affordable spacecraft that can service satellites in space, providing propulsion or other support to extend their lifespan.
Now, flying Mira, the company wanted to demonstrate that a single lightweight camera system, with its closed-loop guidance, navigation and control software, could autonomously rendezvous with another spacecraft. In this case, it was the first Mira spacecraft, launched by Impulse in November 2023. The vehicle no longer has propellant on board to control its orientation, but its solar panels periodically gain enough charge so that it can communicate with Impulse’s engineers in California.
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