Surprise! 2 private spacecraft rendezvous in orbit on newly revealed ‘Remora’ mission

Two commercial spacecraft pulled off a surprise rendezvous in Earth orbit recently, showcasing skills that could pave the way for satellite servicing missions down the road.

The milestone came on a mission called Remora, a newly revealed collaboration between the companies Starfish Space and Impulse Space. One of Impulse Space’s dishwasher-sized Mira orbital transfer vehicles used Starfish software to get within a mere 4,100 feet (1,250 meters) of another Mira, in a key demonstration of autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) tech.

“Together with our partners at Starfish, we brought this mission from concept to execution in less than a year,” Impulse Space President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Romo said in a statement today (Dec. 15). “Our team is ready and able to execute quickly and deliver versatile, complex operations where success is paramount. We’re looking forward to more RPO missions across more orbits in the future.”

That statement announced the existence of Remora and gave some key details about the mission, which Impulse and Starfish developed in just nine months.

It involved outfitting a Mira with a single, lightweight camera and Starfish’s core guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software suite —two programs called Cetacean and Cephalopod, which ran on a peripheral flight computer.

The modified Mira launched in January 2025 on SpaceX’s Transporter 12 rideshare mission, which hauled 131 payloads to low Earth orbit (LEO). This was the second Mira to reach orbit, as indicated by the name Impulse Space chose for its mission: LEO Express 2.

Mira conducted a number of operations on LEO Express 2; it deployed two cubesats, for example, and performed several precision engine burns to showcase the abilities of its propulsion system. And then, unbeknownst to the rest of us, it embarked on the Remora mission.

Using Cetacean and Cephalopod, the spacecraft rendezvoused autonomously with the first space-flown Mira, which launched on SpaceX’s Transporter 9 flight in November 2023 and performed the LEO Express 1 mission.

The close approach occurred in late October over a period of several hours. Mira chronicled the operation with its onboard camera, and we get to see a few snapshots of the progress: Impulse and Starfish released photos showing the target Mira from a distance of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), 4 miles (6.5 km), 1.2 miles (2 km) and 4,100 feet (1,250 m).

“With Remora, we set out to validate our unique approach to autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations in orbit,” Starfish Space Co-Founder Trevor Bennett said in the same statement.

“Proving this capability is a major milestone for Starfish, and gives us tremendous confidence as we move toward our first Otter launches next year,” he added.

Otter is a small, versatile vehicle that Starfish is developing to provide a variety of satellite-servicing functions, from inspection, refueling and repair to the de-orbiting of dead or dying craft.

Remora wasn’t the first demonstration of Otter’s planned capabilities. A trailblazer called Otter Pup 1 launched on SpaceX’s Transporter 8 mission in June 2023.

Otter Pup 1 was supposed to rendezvous with the space tug that deployed it into orbit, but that parent vehicle experienced an anomaly that scuttled that plan. Starfish came up with a new idea, however, successfully maneuvering Otter Pup 1 within 0.6 miles (1 km) of a different space tug in April 2024.

And Otter Pup 2 launched this past June on SpaceX’s Transporter 14, tasked with conducting the first-ever private satellite docking in LEO. So there may be some more news coming from Starfish in the not-too-distant future…