Impulse Space: Powering the new Space Economy

Redefining Space Logistics to Accelerate the Orbital Economy

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Rethinking In-Space Mobility

Accessing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has never been easier. Reusable launch systems, led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9, have dramatically lowered costs and increased launch cadence. But beyond LEO, space remains slow, costly, and underserved. Delivering satellites to higher-energy destinations—such as Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and cislunar space—requires significantly more delta-v, which is the change in velocity needed to reach more distant or demanding orbital regimes. For example, reaching GEO typically involves first inserting a satellite into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), an elliptical path that extends nearly 36,000 kilometers at its highest point, followed by a very lengthy circularization process using onboard propulsion.

Electric propulsion, today’s dominant solution for orbit-raising, can take up to nine months for satellites to fully circularize into GEO. While electric systems offer high efficiency, their low thrust output significantly extends mission timelines—delaying service activation, tying up critical assets, and compounding operational risks. Each satellite stranded in transfer often represents tens, and collectively hundreds, of millions of dollars in deferred revenue, missed contracts, and underutilized capacity. 

Recent examples like SES-15, which took over six months to reach operational orbit, and Inmarsat's I-6 F1 satellite, which began its electric orbit-raising process to GEO in December 2021 and took over seven months, underscore how serious and costly these bottlenecks have become for commercial operators and national programs alike. This is becoming even more acute as demand for GEO capacity accelerates. Operators are not only launching new satellites to meet surging global demand for bandwidth, Earth observation, and secure communications, but are also seeking to replace aging infrastructure, much of which was deployed over a decade ago and is nearing end-of-life. At the same time, the rapid growth of the broader commercial space economy is placing greater pressure on GEO systems, as new applications such as satellite-to-satellite communications, persistent climate monitoring, and sovereign national space programs emerge.

The constraints are deeply structural:

• Limited Agility and Power-Constrained Thrust: Electric propulsion systems, such as ion engines and Hall-effect thrusters, offer high efficiency but deliver extremely low thrust, often in the millinewton range and depend on sustained onboard power. Satellites launched into GTO must perform a series of low-thrust apogee-raising maneuvers to increase perigee and circularize at GEO¹. These extended transfer phases limit agility and responsiveness, hindering their ability to adapt to mission changes dynamically or avoid orbital hazards.
• Limited Maneuvering Agility: Electric systems are not well-suited for rapid or responsive maneuvering. Their slow thrusting profiles restrict the ability to adapt dynamically to mission changes, avoid collisions, or reposition efficiently across orbital planes, which is a growing concern in increasingly congested orbital environments.
• Exposure to Environmental Risk: Extended transfer periods leave satellites vulnerable to space weather events, radiation damage, and increased collision risk in crowded orbits. The longer a satellite remains in transit, the greater its operational exposure to environmental and orbital hazards.
• Operational Complexity and Cost: Managing months-long transfer phases introduces logistical complexity for operators. It requires extended ground support, increases mission planning burdens, and can impact insurance premiums due to prolonged exposure periods.

However, it is not just the launch of new satellites that is impacted. The ability to service and extend the life of existing assets, through refueling, repair, or modifications, has also faced significant barriers. Although servicing could theoretically extend the operational lifespan of aging satellites, it has remained rare and prohibitively expensive. While early commercial demonstrations have shown technical feasibility, servicing missions remain complex, high-risk, and economically viable only for a limited number of high-value assets. In recent years, newer efforts have focused on reducing the cost and complexity of satellite servicing, particularly for small satellite maneuvering and life extension in LEO. 

Next-generation servicing vehicles are being developed to provide inspection, repositioning, and docking capabilities at a fraction of traditional costs, with announced plans to extend these services to geostationary satellites. However, even as technical progress continues, the fundamental challenge of in-orbit logistics remains. The energy, time, and cost required to reach GEO and higher-energy orbits significantly burden mission economics, creating barriers to widespread adoption. Without faster, more flexible in-space mobility solutions, these challenges will only intensify.

Throughout history, the expansion of economies has been inseparable from advances in transportation and logistics. Trade routes enabled the rise of ancient civilizations; railroads unlocked continental economies; container shipping transformed global commerce. In each case, new frontiers only became viable when the underlying mobility infrastructure allowed goods, people, and services to move reliably at scale. Space is no different. Whatever the mission, whether deploying satellites, servicing assets, or operating outposts in interplanetary environments, the ability to move across orbital environments is foundational to the growth of the orbital economy. Addressing this need requires more than incremental improvements to legacy architectures. It demands a new model for in-space transportation: one built for speed, flexibility, and operational efficiency across Earth orbits and beyond. Recognizing this, Impulse Space was founded to solve the mobility challenge by building the critical in-space logistics layer essential to unlocking the orbital economy and accelerating the next phase of commercial, civil, and defense activities in space.

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A Team That Helped Shape Modern Spaceflight

What makes Impulse Space distinct is not just the scale of its ambition, but the depth of experience embedded in its founding team. At the center is Tom Mueller, one of the most accomplished propulsion engineers in the world and a founding team member of SpaceX. As employee #1 and the longtime head of Propulsion, Mueller led the development of the Merlin, Kestrel, Draco, and SuperDraco engines, technologies that made reusable launch vehicles possible and redefined the economics of space. Over three decades, Mueller became not just a technical leader but a gravitational force, inspiring the formation of teams capable of executing at the absolute frontier of aerospace engineering.

“You know, I like machines. I like high-energy, fast and dangerous. I’ve always liked motorcycles. I like fast cars. Rockets were the most appealing things to me because they are the most high-energy mechanical devices that you can do.” - Tom Mueller (source)

That force is now reflected in Impulse’s DNA. Stepping away after 14 years at SpaceX, Mueller initially planned to retire. Instead, he found himself designing a new thruster in his garage, which would become the Deneb engine. Word quickly spread across the aerospace community, and a new team began to form. Now headquartered in Redondo Beach, California, Impulse Space is built around a team with deep SpaceX roots, many of whom helped scale the Falcon and Dragon programs from first flights into operational systems. They carry forward the culture of first-principles design, vertical integration, speed, and deep technical ownership that defined SpaceX’s early success. 

But Impulse is not simply replicating the past. It is building for the Starship era, a future where orbital mobility, logistics, and infrastructure become the new foundations of economic activity beyond Earth's surface. Having shaped the development timelines, operational roadmaps, and deployment strategies at SpaceX, Impulse’s leadership team carries a uniquely informed perspective on where the next critical bottlenecks will emerge and how to overcome them. Their experience positions them to anticipate where new demand will materialize and build for the next generation of complex orbital operations. Leading this effort alongside Mueller is Eric Romo, now President and Chief Operating Officer, who also began his career at SpaceX before founding and scaling companies across energy and virtual reality, including leadership at Meta’s Reality Labs. Together, Mueller, Romo, and the Impulse team represent a rare combination of battle-tested experience and visionary ambition, as builders not only shaped by the first generation of private spaceflight, but dare to define what comes next.

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Infrastructure Designed for a New Era

Delivering rapid orbital maneuverability and high-delta-v capability required rethinking propulsion, avionics, and mission systems from the ground up. At the core of Impulse Space’s architecture is its propulsion-first approach, vertically integrated across engine development, flight software, structural systems, and avionics to enable responsive, high-performance orbital operations. At the heart of this architecture are two new propulsion systems, each designed to meet the specific challenges of fast, flexible movement beyond Low Earth Orbit.

• Saiph Thruster: Developed to power the Mira vehicle, the Saiph thruster is a storable, non-toxic propulsion system that uses ethane and nitrous oxide propellants. This design provides a safer, more logistically efficient alternative to traditional hypergolic systems, while delivering high-cycle life, rapid restart capability, and thrust levels necessary for agile orbital maneuvering. Saiph has completed extensive qualification testing, including over 50,000 pulses and 65,000 seconds of total runtime, validating its readiness for high-reliability missions in dynamic orbital environments. It is designed for modular clustering, allowing scalable thrust configurations depending on mission needs.

• Deneb Engine: Supporting the Helios high-energy kick stage, the Deneb engine is a liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane propulsion system capable of delivering 15,000 pounds-force (lbf) of thrust. Designed for rapid, high-delta-v transfers beyond Low Earth Orbit, Deneb enables fast delivery to Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), Geostationary Orbit (GEO), and cislunar destinations. Its LOX/methane² architecture not only aligns with modern launch system propellant standards, but is also forward-compatible with future in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts. Deneb's qualification program has been accelerated to support upcoming commercial and defense demonstration flights, reflecting the growing market urgency for high-energy, rapid-transit solutions.

Deneb’s torch igniter system³ uses an in-house-built spark ignition mechanism that enables precise and repeatable engine restarts—an essential requirement for the multi-burn, high-reliability profiles demanded in complex orbital missions. Few systems in its class offer this level of control, making it a critical differentiator for rapid, multi-stage orbital transfers.

These propulsion systems form the backbone of a new generation of orbital vehicles designed for the emerging needs of the orbital economy:

• Mira: A high-agility, high-thrust vehicle designed for rapid orbital maneuvering, station-keeping, rendezvous, and hosted payload missions. Mira is optimized for operations in LEO, MEO, GEO, and cislunar orbits, where responsiveness and maneuverability are critical for applications like space domain awareness (SDA)⁴, asset servicing, and dynamic repositioning. It integrates the Saiph thruster array with Impulse’s custom avionics stack and real-time adaptive flight software, allowing precise, autonomous control across complex orbital regimes. Mira’s modular design enables future upgrades, including higher-thrust variants and expanded payload integration capabilities.

• Helios: A high-energy orbital transfer stage designed for time-critical delivery to all orbit destinations. Powered by the Deneb engine, Helios dramatically reduces orbital transfer timelines, shrinking what today requires months with electric propulsion down to under just eight hours. This capability is critical for next-generation commercial constellations, lunar infrastructure build-up, and national security missions requiring rapid orbital mobility and long-range deployments. Helios is designed with serviceability and reusability pathways in mind, reflecting the industry’s broader transition toward sustainable in-space operations.

Rather than treating propulsion as a subsystem, Impulse has re-centered it as the primary enabler of next-generation orbital infrastructure. Their approach builds on the same first-principles thinking that empowered SpaceX: By vertically integrating propulsion, avionics, structural systems, and real-time mission software, the company has created a platform built for the operational realities of dynamic, contested, and multi-mission space environments.

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Unlocking Responsive Space Operations

As space activity moves beyond Earth orbit and accelerates toward cislunar and deep-space domains, mobility infrastructure that can respond rapidly, maneuver flexibly, and operate with less and less human supervision will be pivotal. Impulse Space’s propulsion-first platform with same-day delivery capability is built for exactly this future, supporting today's operational needs while opening the door to tomorrow's space economy. Immediate capabilities enabled by Impulse include:

• Dynamic Orbital Defense and SDA:
  In an increasingly contested space environment, Mira’s high-agility maneuvering is critical for national security operations, including persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) coverage. Recent reports highlight Chinese satellites practicing "dogfighting" maneuvers, which aggressively shadow, intercept, and trail other spacecraft to simulate offensive actions. Russian assets have similarly demonstrated disruptive proximity operations. In this new environment, the ability to re-task, reposition, defend and deter satellites dynamically is no longer optional. 
• Collision Avoidance in Congested Orbits:
  The growing population of debris and defunct satellites across LEO, MEO, and GEO raises real operational risks. High-delta-v mobility allows spacecraft to autonomously avoid collision threats without ground-based micro-management, a critical capability as orbits become more crowded and dynamic.
• Asset Servicing and Repositioning:
  Mira's flexibility supports on-orbit servicing missions, asset inspection, and life-extension maneuvers, allowing operators to reposition or repair assets without requiring expensive new replacements.
• Hosted Payloads and Platform-as-a-Service:
  By offering maneuverable hosting platforms, Impulse can support rapid deployment of new surveillance, sensing, or communications capabilities, reducing mission costs and time-to-orbit for customers.

While Impulse’s immediate focus is on dynamic orbital mobility, its propulsion-first platform architecture points toward broader strategic possibilities. As the orbital economy matures, high-agility vehicles like Mira and Helios could enable autonomous on-orbit refueling networks, debris interception and removal missions, dynamic cargo transfers between satellites, and even serve as power and resource distribution platforms for lunar surface operations. In future cislunar infrastructure, maneuverable vehicles will be critical for delivering supplies, repositioning assets, and supporting ground stations with energy relay or communications bridging. 

In under three years, Impulse Space has translated its vision into rapid execution. The company has successfully launched two Mira missions, demonstrating responsive maneuvering and autonomous collision avoidance capabilities. It has been selected by Vast to supply propulsion systems for the Haven-1 commercial space station, reflecting the growing demand for flexible, high-performance mobility across both commercial and government sectors. Impulse has also completed critical propulsion milestones on the Deneb engine, accelerating Helios’s path toward high-energy demonstration flights, with the inaugural launch targeted for mid-2026. On the defense side, the company has secured multiple large-value contracts with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command and through the STRATFI⁵ initiative, focused on enabling dynamic, high-delta-v orbital operations. Its partnership with Anduril Industries, integrating Mira into the Lattice autonomous defense network, positions Impulse at the forefront of a new model for responsive, contested-space operations.

As space becomes increasingly strategic for national interests and matures as a commercial domain, the need for companies that rethink fundamentals rather than merely upgrade legacy systems has never been more critical. Much like SpaceX redefined launch by reimagining access itself, Impulse Space is focused on rebuilding how we operate across and beyond Earth orbit. By transforming in-space logistics, they are helping catalyze the broader space economy and laying the foundations for a new era of infrastructure, commerce, and exploration.

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