Autonomous Space Ops

Starfish and Impulse pull-off an incredible feat in space that would make Jim McDivitt jealous

Good morning,

This is our penultimate edition of 2025. Friday’s Defense and Dual-Use Tech edition will round us out for planned publications until the new year.

Trade deals are again at the forefront of news as the U.S.-U.K. tech deal has stalled out and the U.S. looks to get petty with European tech companies over E.U. regulations. Last week we warned about moonquakes and the potential impact on lunar bases. This week, a bit of good news emerged for those bases. Namely, trace amounts of the Earth’s atmosphere have been found to extend all the way to the moon. Not enough to really be helpful—at least not given current technologies—but hey, it’s still pretty cool.

Speaking of cool, everyone should cheer for Starfish Space and Impulse Space who announced the success of the previously secretive Remora mission. Under this mission, these two companies self-funded and conducted an autonomous rendezvous and proximity operation (RPO) of two Impulse Mira spacecraft using Starfish’s autono…