Amazon made same-day delivery the benchmark on Earth. Impulse Space is pitching a similar concept for satellites bound for geostationary orbit about 22,000 miles above Earth, compressing what is typically a months-long transit into a matter of hours.
In the span of a week, the in-space propulsion startup announced a trio of deals aiming to unlock geostationary orbit (GEO) for commercial and defense users. That includes a demonstration mission with defense contractor Anduril planned for 2026; a transportation deal with GEO communications startup Astranis in 2027; and a multi-launch agreement to carry Infinite Orbits’ servicing satellites to GEO starting the same year.
Tom Mueller founded Impulse in 2021 after nearly two decades leading propulsion at SpaceX, where he led development of the Merlin and Raptor engines. He left SpaceX in 2020 and started Impulse to build out in-space transport services focused on last-mile delivery in low Earth orbit (LEO) — which is typically 100 to 1,200 miles above Earth — and ultra-fast satellite transport to GEO.
The common denominator across these missions is Helios, Impulse’s methane-oxygen kick stage. A kick stage is essentially a small rocket engine system that rides on a larger rocket and then fires its own engine – in this case, a powerful engine called Deneb – to propel spacecraft to their final destination.
Helios is meant to be the “same day” courier from LEO to higher altitude orbits. If it performs as advertised, commercial operators could reach higher orbits much faster, and the Department of Defense could maneuver more quickly in an increasingly contested region of space.
GEO isn’t just far away. Getting there and operating satellites from there presents special challenges. Spacecraft must transit the high-radiation Van Allen belts — zones of charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field — deal with latency in long-distance communication, and maintain their precise position.
The partnership between Anduril and Impulse could prove especially lucrative. The pair will jointly build a demo satellite for rendezvous and proximity operations — a capability that allows spacecraft to approach and inspect other objects in orbit — which the Space Force has identified as critical for space domain awareness and deterrence.
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Impulse is supplying the spacecraft – called Mira, which flew for the first time last year – while Anduril will provide a mission data processor, long-wave infrared imager, and other software-defined payloads aimed at tracking and high-precision navigation.
As part of the demo, Helios will ferry the spacecraft to GEO in under a day, after which the mission aims to capture images of other resident space objects, analyze them, and autonomously execute precise maneuvers to observe the objects.
U.S. officials often describe the goal as “maneuvering without regret,” or the ability to reposition satellites on orbit without jeopardizing the mission or wasting costly fuel.
On the commercial side, Astranis signed on for a 2027 mission that would see its MicroGEO satellites launched to LEO on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and then delivered to geostationary orbit in less than 24 hours by Helios. That mission profile is super valuable to Astranis, as it will allow the company to dramatically accelerate satellite activation dates for customers waiting for their satellite broadband services here on Earth.
Finally, Impulse signed a multi-launch agreement with France’s Infinite Orbits to carry several satellite servicing spacecraft to GEO via a ride-share program called Caravan. Impulse says the Caravan offering will deliver multiple small satellites at the same time, much as SpaceX’s ride-share program lets companies split the cost of a launch. The first Caravan mission is fully booked for 2026, Impulse said.
In recent years, the space industry’s explosive growth has mostly focused on LEO as operators shifted to smaller, less expensive satellites for applications in communications and remote sensing. But if Impulse has its way, the next phase of growth will be in GEO.