Satellite transport company Impulse Space has signed a multi-launch agreement with Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES to deliver satellites to medium and geostationary Earth orbits, beginning with a 2027 mission using Impulse\u2019s Helios transfer vehicle.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, Impulse will use its Helios kick stage to carry a four-ton SES satellite from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geostationary orbit (GEO) in less than eight hours. The companies did not disclose the satellite model or the launch provider for the mission. Additional opportunities for transporting SES payloads to GEO or medium Earth orbit (MEO) are included under the broader agreement.<\/p>\n
This marks the first commercial contract for a dedicated Helios mission. Introduced in early 2024, Helios is designed to deliver payloads of up to five tons to GEO within a single day\u2014dramatically faster than conventional kick stages or electric propulsion systems, which can take weeks or months for the same trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe MEO and GEO play a critical role in the space economy, but operators today face the challenges of slow, expensive, and inflexible access to these essential orbits,\u201d said Tom Mueller, founder and chief executive of Impulse Space. \u201cHelios is built to move large payloads to high-energy orbits quickly and reliably.\u201d<\/p>\n
SES, which operates one of the world\u2019s largest commercial GEO and MEO fleets, emphasized the operational benefits of accelerated orbital delivery. \u201cToday, we\u2019re not only partnering with Impulse to bring our satellites faster to orbit, but this will also allow us to extend their lifetime and accelerate service delivery to our customers,\u201d said SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh.<\/p>\n
SES has a history of working with new launch technologies, having been the first GEO operator to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9, including reusing a booster.<\/p>\n
In addition to SES, Impulse Space has lined up other customers for its Helios and Mira space tugs. In September, the company announced an agreement with French startup Space Network Services to deploy up to six small satellites to GEO via Helios rideshare. In October, Impulse won a $34.5 million U.S. military contract to support two space missions\u2014Victus Surgo and Victus Salo\u2014utilizing its smaller Mira vehicle. For Victus Surgo, the Mira tug will be carried to GEO by a Helios transfer stage.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Satellite transport company Impulse Space has signed a multi-launch agreement with Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES to deliver satellites to medium and geostationary Earth orbits, beginning with a 2027 mission using Impulse\u2019s Helios transfer vehicle. Under the agreement, Impulse will use its Helios kick stage to carry a four-ton SES satellite from low Earth orbit (LEO) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[458,20,1043,5234],"class_list":["post-20170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-impulse-space","tag-satellite","tag-ses","tag-tom-mueller"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}