Orbital tug startup Impulse Space raises $500 million in private investment capital
Impulse’s Helios tug, transporting its proposed
lunar lander to the Moon. Click for original image.
The orbital tug startup Impulse Space announced today that it has successfully raised $500 million in private investment capital.
The round was co-led by 137 Ventures and BANNER VC, bringing the company’s total capital raised to over $1 billion. The funding will support hiring and manufacturing growth as the company scales its effort to build in-space mobility infrastructure: the vehicles, propulsion systems, and operational architecture that determine where and how spacecraft move after launch.
The company was founded by Tom Mueller, who was one of SpaceX’s first employees and helped develop the Merlin engine used on the Falcon 9. It has a fleet of tugs, with its Mira tug having already completed a number of missions. Its larger Helios tug is scheduled for its first mission next year.
Hat tip reader Nate P.
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Another half billion is a lot of money, especially for someone who spent so long designing for cost like Mueller. While the company is getting business for tugs, it’s announced landers as well, so I wonder how much of this will go towards the latter, or potentially to other business lines.
Impulse Space’s lunar lander is supposed to be capable of up to 3 tons to the lunar surface, which is a pretty hefty load. This is not a punter’s effort. You can understand why they might need that much capital. They could end up being a major player in Artemis surface operations.
I hope so…if Starship use were just around the corner…why waste time with the hockey puck?
I’m going to assume you are referring to the recently announced Starfall mini orbital factory/re-entry modules as “hockey pucks.”
It seems likely that SpaceX either has something it wants to make on-orbit itself or has an outside customer who does and was willing to pony up some serious cash to make that happen.
But Starships, once operational, will be most economically efficient if kept flying frequently. The process of making whatever SpaceX or its notional client intends to make on-orbit might well be lengthy. If so, it could make sense to leave autonomous mini-factories on-orbit for extended stays while bringing the Starships that deploy them back quickly to be sent up again on other lucrative chores.
The form factor of the Skyfall “hockey pucks” makes me suspect they are intended to be deployed on the same “PEZ dispenser” Starships that will be mostly employed carrying up loads of Starlink and Starlink Mobile sats.
Because they don’t have the same role. These will be substantially cheaper and simpler, and as Dick points out, Starships will be more efficient shuttling people and cargo back and forth rather than staying on orbit for weeks or months on end.
Did you mean to reply to another topic? This is about Impulse, not SpaceX.
Even if it’s three tons – and not three tonnes – an Impulse lander with that kind of capability would be close to interchangeable with Blue’s Mk-1 in terms of landed mass per trip. Having two landers in that capability range would make Jared’s job a lot easier – once both are actually available that is.