Tom Mueller’s Impulse Space Wants to Move Satellites Across Orbits in a Day

How Tom Mueller’s Impulse Space Plans to Slash Orbital Transfer Times

After helping build the engines that made SpaceX a powerhouse, Tom Mueller is turning to what he sees as the next big bottleneck in space: moving things around once they’re already in orbit. In 2021, the former SpaceX chief engineer and first employee founded Impulse Space in California, aiming to cut the time it takes for satellites to shift between orbits from months to hours.

Today, most satellites rely on electric propulsion that can take six to twelve months to climb from a low Earth orbit to a geostationary position. Impulse Space uses chemical engines on its vehicles to do the same job in less than a day. The company has already flown its smaller Mira vehicle on multiple missions and plans to introduce Helios in 2027—a larger craft designed to haul up to four tonnes to geostationary orbit within 24 hours.

The bet has attracted serious capital. In June, investors valued Impulse at $4.3 billion, and the startup has raised over $1 billion to date. The space economy itself is projected to grow to roughly $1.8 trillion by 2035, and the US Space Force alone has proposed a $71 billion budget for fiscal 2027. Mueller himself, whose stake in both SpaceX and Impulse handed him a net worth of about $1.7 billion this year, argues that the long-term future of humanity—and a new resources-based economy—lies on the Moon and asteroids.

What a $4.3B Valuation for Impulse Space Signals for the Space Economy

Impulse’s Competitive Edge: Speed and Vertical Integration

Where most satellite operators accept months-long transfer times as the norm, Impulse promises same-day delivery. That speed advantage could unlock new business models—allowing operators to reconfigure constellations faster or respond to urgent demand for bandwidth. Impulse also builds nearly all critical components in-house, from engines and tanks to electronics and antennas. Vertical integration gives it tighter control over costs and supply chains, mirroring the playbook that worked for Mueller at SpaceX.

A $1.8 Trillion Market—Still in Its Infancy

Forecasts of an $1.8 trillion space economy by 2035 are eye-catching, but the market for in-space transportation is nascent. Satellite operators, lunar missions and government agencies are likely early customers, yet many of the use cases that would fill Helios’s capacity are still under development. The real question is whether demand scales quickly enough to absorb the supply of fast orbital transfer services.

The Mueller Factor and the SpaceX Legacy

Tom Mueller’s track record gives Impulse a credibility that most space startups lack. As the designer of the Merlin engine, he solved one of the hardest engineering challenges of the Falcon 9. That reputation helps attract talent and capital, and it may open doors with the US government, which is pouring record sums into space programs. However, Impulse must prove it can move from successful test flights to reliable commercial operations at scale.

What Satellite Operators and Investors Should Watch as Impulse Space Scales

For satellite operators and space service providers:

• Track Helios’s first fully commercial missions, now targeted for 2027. Early payloads could demonstrate the cost-to-speed trade-off that defines whether the service gains traction.
• Review launch-and-transfer contracts to assess whether a faster ride to geostationary orbit can shorten revenue ramp-up for new satellites—and what premium that speed is worth.

For investors and industry watchers:

• Watch for government contracts—particularly from the US Space Force, which is set to spend $71 billion in fiscal 2027—as a leading indicator of demand for rapid in-space mobility.
• Monitor capacity utilization reports once Helios is operational; the gap between vehicle capacity and actual payload bookings will signal whether the nascent market is maturing fast enough.