Space transportation firm Impulse Space Inc. has secured $10 million in funding from Lux Capital. The raise follows a recent $20 million seed round led by the Founders Fund.
Impulse Space, which is based in El Segundo, will use the infusion of cash to accelerate its efforts toward providing economic space transportation and improving payload delivery services.
Impulse founder Tom Mueller, the former chief technology officer of propulsion at Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), serves as the company’s chief executive. He launched the company in September 2021.
Impulse Space is working to provide last-mile payload delivery services, including in-space transportation, orbital transport of satellites to optimal orbits, in-orbit servicing, space debris deorbit and space station orbit keeping.
“With funding from Lux Capital, Impulse continues to build on a solid financial foundation and an equally strong foundation of the amazing people supporting us,” Mueller said in a statement. “Especially for a company like Impulse Space, it’s important to be aligned with people and organizations that trust in our technologies and capabilities as much as we do.”
New York City-based Lux Capital, co-founded by managing partners Peter Hébert and Josh Wolfe, is known for investing in companies focused on emerging technology.
The team members behind Impulse’s technology have developed products for organizations such as SpaceX, NASA, General Electric Co. and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Last month, Impulse partnered with Long Beach-based launch vehicle startup Relativity Space to build a robotic Mars lander they hope to launch as soon as 2024.
For this project, Impulse is tasked with building the lander, cruise stage and entry capsule. Relativity would launch the spacecraft on the Terran R reusable rocket under development.
The companies haven’t provided an expected cost of the mission but noted in a statement that the “overall estimated cost of the mission is significantly less than previous Mars missions.
