Starfish Space is an on-orbit satellite servicing company that has not only attracted attention from venture capitalist companies (raising over $50 M to date) such as Booz Allen Ventures but has already secured contracts with the United States Space Force, Intelsat, and NASA. The company aims to use its “Otter satellite” to provide geostationary servicing for extending end-of-life assets, maneuvering orbital systems to a graveyard orbit, and removing space debris. While these missions can benefit the space community, they are not without risk.

 Advanced cyber actors would now have two options to execute computer network attacks against a geostationary satellite. An actor could either target the “prime” (or primary mission satellite), wait for a chance to infect an Otter satellite, then pivot to conduct extended operations from the satellite, or jump to the new system and target another satellite. Additionally, cyber actors could target an individual Otter to resurrect a satellite from GEO, providing access to legacy (and most likely) unsecured systems. Lastly, the ground station that controls the fleet of Otter’s would be a prime target for cyber actors because it would enable all the above activities at a scale that could devastate a GEO architecture. Starfish Space will need to develop robust security measures.

Article: Satellite-servicing startup Starfish Space raises $29 million – SpaceNews

Starfish Space: The otter – Starfish Space