Impulse Space Inc., a spacecraft manufacturer based in Redondo Beach, announced in early June it raised $300 million in series C funding, led by Linse Capital.

The new funding comes at a time when Los Angeles’ space sector, home to 5% of the world’s space companies, is in a lurch due to increasing geopolitical tensions, war and cybersecurity attacks. The Trump Administration’s 2026 budget request would slash the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s funding for science projects in half. At the same time, the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal defense spending bill for 2026 proposed increased funding to the Space Force. Both NASA and Space Force are two of the largest customers for space-related companies.

“Space as a domain is both not really well understood and also not really defended at all,” said Eric Romo, the president and chief operating officer of Impulse Space. “The ports that we have that bring goods in, they have a whole navy that defends them. Whereas we have things like the GPS constellation – which is a huge benefit to all of us, it’s a whole way of life, you’ve got Ubers and deliveries and logistics all run on GPS – but that GPS constellation is not defended by anything.”

A new generation of space vehicles

Since its inception in 2021, Impulse Space has raised $525 million and netted more than 30 contracts that together are valued at around $200 million. The company was founded by Tom Mueller, who was the first employee of Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. – better known as SpaceX. At SpaceX, Mueller spent 19 years in the propulsion department.

“The genesis of Impulse is really to pick up where SpaceX and others left off, which is that getting to space is solved and now we need to figure out how to move things through space efficiently,” Romo said.

Indeed, the company isn’t interested in building rockets that go to space. Instead, it has built two space vehicles – which are used to navigate different areas of orbit and deliver payloads – out of a 60,000-square-foot facility in Redondo Beach. Space vehicles are in high demand across various sectors. For instance, satellites that provide access to the internet, track climate changes and monitor on behalf of the military are becoming important to the public and private sector alike. The number of deals made in the space industry reached an all-time high in 2024, according to PitchBook.

“Impulse is tackling one of the most technically demanding challenges in aerospace with a speed and precision we rarely see,” said Bastiaan Janmaat, the managing partner at Linse Capital, in a statement. “(Its) vertically integrated approach, proven track record, and ability to execute quickly in this market give(s) (it) a real advantage.”

Mira, the smaller device, has been flying in space since 2023 and was used on two customer missions. Impulse Space has worked with Anduril Industries Inc., a wartime technology company based in Costa Mesa, to put cameras and wartime sensors in a Mira vehicle that was then sent into space. Mira is often used by military-related organizations to monitor space. Helios, a newly minted spacecraft, is on track to be deployed in 2026. The considerably larger vehicle can deliver larger items, like communication satellites, further into the abyss and away from Earth. Impulse Space signed a contract with SES, a satellite operator company, in late May.

“We take a ride on somebody else’s rocket and then our missions that we do for customers tend to be moving ourselves and other things around space,” said Romo.