Tag: Helios

Orbital tug startup Impulse raises $300 million in private investment capital

9:57 am

Following several large contract announcements in recent weeks, the orbital tug startup Impulse has now raised an additional $300 million in private investment capital, in addition to the $150 million it raised last year.

Impulse plans to use the funding for several initiatives. One is to scale up production of its Mira and Helios vehicles to better meet demand for them. The company says it has more than 30 signed contracts for those vehicles, a backlog worth nearly $200 million. Romo said the company is seeing increasing demand for Mira, the smaller of the two vehicles, for defense applications.

The company was founded by Tom Mueller, who was one of the principal engineers during SpaceX’s development of the Falcon 9. Mira is the smaller of the two tugs, and has flown one demo mission. The larger Helios tug has not yet flown, but the company recently won a contract with the satellite company SES to use it.

The company has also said it is developing its own rocket, but I suspect its first launch that will come later.

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Orbital tug startup Impulse Space wins contract with satellite company SES

3:15 pm

The orbital tug startup Impulse Space has won a contract to use its Helios tug to transport the satellites of the long established Luxembourg company SES to their correct orbit after launch.

The companies announced May 22 that they signed a multi-launch agreement that starts with a mission in 2027 where Impulse’s Helios kick stage, placed into low Earth orbit by a medium-class rocket, will send a four-ton SES satellite from LEO to GEO within eight hours. The announcement did not disclose the vehicle that will launch Helios and the satellite, or the specific SES satellite.

The agreement, the companies said, includes an “opportunity” for additional missions to transport SES satellites to GEO or medium Earth orbits.

This the first satellite tug contract for Impulse’s Helios tug, which is the larger of the company’s two tugs, the smaller version dubbed Mira. While Mira has completed an orbital demo mission, Helios has not yet flown, though it has three planned launches beginning in 2026.

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Orbital tug startup Impulse Space buys three SpaceX Falcon 9 launches

12:53 pm

The orbital tug startup Impulse Space announced yesterday that it has signed a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches in order to fly its Helios orbital tug as well as its smaller Mira tug on several commercial missions.

The first launch, planned for mid-2026, will be the first flight of Helios. The transfer vehicle will transport the company’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 Defense Innovation Unit. Impulse Space received a $34.5 million contract for Victus Surgo and another mission, Victus Salo, Oct. 3. Impulse Space said the schedule and payloads for the other two Helios launches will be determined later.

This development signals a major shift in the nascent orbital tug industry. Up until now the varous tug companies would buy launch space on rockets as secondary payloads. This I think is the first time a tug company has purchased the rocket itself as the primary payload, giving it the ability to control the rocket in order to make its tug operations more precise for all of its customers.

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Orbital tug startup Impulse Space increases the kinds of satellites it will offer rides to geosynchronous orbit

9:16 am

The orbital tug startup Impulse Space, founder by former SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, has announced new plans to make it possible for its tugs to take more kinds of satellites to geosynchronous orbit.

First, the company is revising the design of its larger Helios tug, set to do its first commercial mission in 2027, to carry multiple satellites ranging in weight from 300 to 5000 kilograms. Second, it is upgrading its already-flown smaller Mira tug so that it can be attached to Helios and act as a secondary tug once Helios gets to geosynchronous orbit.

The first Mira demo mission, launched in November 2023, had some communications and software issues but was still considered an overall success. The next mission will fly later this year.

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