Impulse Space, founded in 2021 by ex-SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, is an in-space transportation company and space tug provider. It develops orbital transfer vehicles like Mira and Helios to move satellites and payloads from LEO to other orbits, including GEO, lunar, and Martian destinations. Impulse Space has partnered with companies like Relativity Space, Exolaunch, and Anduril, and was selected by NASA as a launch service provider under the VADR contract.
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The Space Safari office awarded a $34,500,000 contract to Impulse Space to supply launch services and orbital maneuver vehicles for both Victus Salo and Victus Surgo.
Impulse Space received a $34,500,000 contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Safari office and the Defense Innovation Unit to support Victus Surgo and another TacRS mission.
Impulse Space previously received a STRATFI award and SBIR Phase III contracts with the United States Space Force.
Impulse Space selected Falcon 9 to launch the contracted Helios and associated missions.
The Falcon 9 launches for Impulse Space are planned to begin in 2026.
Optimum Technologies was awarded a $4,500,000 contract by the U.S. Space Force to develop an optical imaging payload for a mission scheduled to fly in 2026 on an Impulse Space vehicle.
Impulse Space signed a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches to support the development and deployment of Impulse Space’s Helios and Mira vehicles.
Impulse Space unveiled a developmental version of the Deneb engine on 2024-11-14 and indicated that tests of Deneb will begin soon.
Each contracted Falcon 9 launch will carry Impulse Space’s Helios transfer vehicle, a high-energy kick stage introduced by Impulse Space in January 2024.
Impulse Space signed a contract with SpaceX on 2024-11-14 for the Falcon 9 launches carrying Helios.
Impulse Space received a $34,500,000 contract on 2024-10-03 for the Victus Surgo mission and another mission called Victus Salo.
Impulse Space raised $150,000,000 in a Series B funding round on 2024-10-01 to support work on both Helios and Mira.
Impulse Space purchased three Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX for its Helios transfer vehicle for missions starting in 2026, including one mission for the U.S. Space Force.
On the mid-2026 mission, Helios will transport Impulse Space’s smaller Mira vehicle, carrying a commercial optical payload, from low Earth orbit to geostationary transfer orbit on the Victus Surgo mission for the Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit.
The UMSR is expected to provide 662 seconds of specific impulse, compared to 841 seconds from NERVA, and higher than chemical propulsion alternatives.
Impulse Space completed a $150,000,000 Series B investment round that included investment support from Tamarack Global.
Tamarack Global has allocated about a third of its $72,000,000 fund to investments, including support for Impulse Space’s $150,000,000 Series B investment round.
The National Reconnaissance Office signed agreements on 2024-10-30 with Cognitive Space, Impulse Space, and Starfish Space under the Broad Agency Announcements for Agile Launch Innovation and Strategic Technology Advancement program.
The 19 HALO pool members are Airbus U.S. Space & Defense (Arlington, Virginia); Apex Technology, Inc. (Culver City, California); AST Space Mobile USA LLC (Midland, Texas); Astro Digital, U.S. Inc. (San Jose, California); Capella Space Corp. (San Francisco); CesiumAstro Inc. (Austin, Texas); Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Cedar Park, Texas); Geneva Technologies Inc. (Monument, Colorado); Impulse Space, Inc. (Redondo Beach, California); Kepler Communications U.S. Inc. (Wilmington, Delaware); Kuiper Government Solutions (KGS) LLC (Arlington, Virginia); LeoStella LLC (Tukwila, Washington); Momentus Space (San Jose, California); Muon Space, Inc. (Mountain View, California); NovaWurks Inc. (Los Alamitos, California); Space Exploration Technologies Corps. (SpaceX) (Hawthorne, California); Turion Space Corp. (Irvine, California); Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. (Irvine, California); and York Space Systems LLC (Denver).
The zinc-fueled Hall Effect Thruster plus Benchmark chemical thruster integration provides an additional 15–25% total impulse or mission range compared with the electric-only option.