Impulse Space raises $500 million as space shuttle race heats up

Circling space, as it were, is a big deal.

On Tuesday, Impulse Space, a company dedicated to advancing space travel, announced that it has raised $500 million in Series D funding. Since it was founded five years ago by SpaceX veteran Tom Mueller, the company has now raised more than $1 billion.

“Timing is everything,” Mueller said in an interview about the new funding. By this, he means that the company has found a way to enter many markets.

Since 2001, the company has already operated three missions with the small plane, Mira, which was launched for the first time in 2023 with an advanced engine powered by non-toxic materials, nitrous oxide and ethane. It has customers in line. After Impulse announced its largest stage “Helios”, demand was greater than expected from commercial customers. The US Space Force has become interested in satellite navigation, and now Impulse Space also believes that it can provide landing support in the “1-ton-class” to NASA thanks to its new Moon Base project.

Movement is important

Company officials said they are not looking for new funding, but investors want them to take advantage of the upcoming expansion to meet demand.

“It’s all happening now,” said Eric Romo, the company’s president and chief operating officer. “And I think that will continue, and the market will continue to find new and exciting things. Nobody was talking about data centers in space a year ago, right? So who knows what we’re talking about this time next year.”

The company is not the only company in the United States that has recently been founded, or has gone out of business, dedicated to the advancement of space travel, especially the transfer from Low-Earth orbit to geostationary orbit, or travel within those ways. The Space Force’s budget has grown significantly in recent years, and one of its responsibilities is to combat espionage and potentially hostile activities by Russian and Chinese aircraft in these orbits. For this to happen, travel is very important.