Amazon made a benchmark on Earth on the same day. Impulse space A similar concept is being introduced to satellites about 22,000 miles on Earth, thus compressing a month-long time to several hours.
Over the course of a week, the Space Promotion startup announced three deals aimed at unlocking geostationary orbits (GEOs) for commercial and defense users. These include a demonstration mission of Anduril, a defense contractor, planned for 2026; a transportation agreement with Geo Communications startup Astranis in 2027; and a multi-release agreement to ship unlimited orbit maintenance satellites to GEO starting the same year.
Tom Mueller founded Impulse in 2021 After nearly twenty years of leadership advancement at SpaceXhe led the development of Merlin and Raptor engines. He left SpaceX in 2020 and began impulse to establish a space transport service for last-mile delivery of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is typically 100 to 1,200 miles higher than Earth — as well as ultra-fast satellite transport to GEO.
The common point in these tasks is the methane-oxygen kick stage Helios of Impulse. The kick-table is essentially a small rocket engine system that rides on larger rockets and then launches its own engine (in this case, a powerful engine called Deneb) that pushes the spacecraft to its final destination.
Helios is the “same day” courier from Leo to higher altitude tracks. If advertising is shown, commercial operators can reach higher tracks faster, while the Department of Defense can manipulate faster in more and more space areas.
Geography is not just far away. Getting there and operating the satellite from there presents a special challenge. The spacecraft must go through the highly radiant Allen belt (a area of charged particles captured by the Earth’s magnetic field) to process the latency in long-distance communications and maintain its precise position.
The partnership between Anduril and Impulse can be particularly profitable. Together, the couple will build a demonstration satellite for ensemble and proximity operations, which enables the spacecraft to approach and inspect other objects in orbit – space forces identify it as consciousness and deterrent forces in space.
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Impulse is offering the spacecraft — called Mira, which first flew last year — while Anduril will offer mission data processors, long-wave infrared imagers, and other software-defined payloads designed to track and high-precision navigation.
As part of the demonstration, Helios will deliver the spacecraft to GEO in one day, after which the mission is designed to capture images of other inhabitants’ space objects, analyze them and perform precise operations autonomously to observe objects.
U.S. officials often describe the target as “no regret action” or repositioning satellites in orbit without damaging the mission or wasting expensive fuel.
On the commercial side, Astranis signed a 2027 mission that will see its Microgeo satellite launching to Leo on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and then shipped to Geostationary orbit in less than 24 hours of Helios. The mission profile is very valuable to Astranis, as this will allow the company to significantly accelerate satellite activation dates so customers can wait for their satellite broadband services on Earth.
Ultimately, Impulse signed a multiple deal with France’s Infinity Orbit to deliver several satellite-service spacecraft to GEO through a ride-sharing program called Caravan. Impulse said the caravan product will offer multiple small satellites at the same time, just as SpaceX’s Ride-Share Program could allow companies to allocate the cost of launch. Impulse said the first caravan mission has been booked for 2026.
In recent years, the explosive growth in the space industry has focused primarily on LEO as operators switch to smaller, lower-priced satellites for communications and remote sensing application applications. But if impulses have a pathway, the next phase of growth will be geography.
