Impulse Space#61
About
Impulse Space builds in-space mobility vehicles, including the Mira orbital transfer vehicle and the Helios high-energy kick stage, to move satellites and payloads between orbits. It was founded by SpaceX's first employee, Tom Mueller.
From X
My company Impulse Space and I are in a new Forbes article about SpaceX alumni https://t.co/ki0KuGanD7
Tom Mueller was SpaceX’s first employee and built the rocket engines that helped make Elon Musk’s space empire possible. Now, the billionaire engineer has a new bet: Impulse Space, a startup racing to build the fast lane for satellites, cargo and eventually people after launch. My latest feature story in @Forbes takes a look under the hood of Mueller's grand ambitions in the emerging space economy. https://t.co/UE98tQ908a
Astranis is partnering with Impulse Space for our 2027 launch: SpaceX Falcon 9 to LEO, Impulse Helios direct-inject to GEO. This is our third dedicated launch, and with 6 satellites onboard, we will lead the GEO industry by number of satellites launched this decade. This partnership will cut our orbit raise from months to hours, a capability highly demanded by both commercial and government customers. In 2027 we’ll have 16 satellites in GEO — which, by our count, means we’ll operate the 8th largest commercial fleet in GEO (even after giving everyone ahead of us a 30+ year head start). We are nearly ready to start announcing our customer lineup for the new satellites, and by 2027 we will be serving enterprise customers across the globe, from telcos, to data centers, to oil & gas companies, and more. Everyone needs comms. And sophisticated buyers that have hard & fast requirements for security, independence, data sovereignty, and network visibility increasingly choose Astranis. We’re honored to work with two legends of the rocket business, SpaceX and @_Eric_Romo / @lrocket at Impulse Space, to make our 2027 mission a success. And you can bet that we’ll have much more to announce, more launches and more satellites sold, in the near future.
For the first time, our Saiph thruster is being tested on a different test stand. Hope the performance numbers match or even maybe a little higher!🙂 Soon to burn in orbit, on the Vast Haven Demo spacecraft. @vast @GoToImpulse
big wk of funding @ Lux family co's $2.3B 💳 Ramp (global financial mgmt of everything) $750M 🚀 Impulse Space (orbital logistics + defense) $500M 🧠 Flourish (unqiuely new neuro-based AI) $500M ☀️ Helion (next-gen power through fusion) $465M 🏭 Layup Parts (composites/Anduril alum) $42M 🧬 Waypoint Bio (AI engineered cells) $20M
Eric Romo, President & COO of Impulse Space says the biggest misconception about the space economy is.. "that there is one." "There’s not another Starlink, & there’s not another Elon" "The reality is, SpaceX has made so much money in part because Elon’s really good at selling his companies, & in part because Starlink is a great business." Why's that? "Look, space, on the commercial side, like what people who aren’t the government pay for, it’s basically just comms, right? That’s like the whole space economy outside of the government is comms. And comms is dominated by @Starlink. And then there’s some other providers whose names you see when you’re on an airplane and the WiFi hopefully works. I think everyone is trying to think about what could be that next thing, like orbital data centers, or like, “Hey, is that the next thing?” around commercial stuff. I think the jury’s out on that still. I’m not a data center expert, so I don’t really have a strong opinion on it, but it’s not a thing yet, and nor is mining the moon or asteroids or whatever. So space is really comms on the commercial side, defense, which Space Force budget is going crazy, which is great for companies that are trying to sell to them, and then a little of NASA. NASA’s budget’s been flat to down in the last few years, that’s all of space. And so I think a lot of the interest and enthusiasm from investors is people who watched the SpaceX ride and either made money on it or wished they did. And they’re trying to say, “Okay, well, I’m gonna find the next one.” @_Eric_Romo @GoToImpulse @elonmusk Recorded at @NYSE x @payloadspace Space Summit 2026
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Will Impulse Space fly its Helios kick stage before 2028?
