Impulse Space has announced that the first orbiter will be launched later this year as part of a joint SpaceX mission. Impulse Space has announced that the LEO Express-1 mission using the Mira vehicle it is developing will launch as part of the SpaceX Transporter-9 joint mission, currently scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023. LEO Express-1 will carry the main load for an unknown customer.

Barry Matsumori, chief operating officer of Impulse Space, said in an interview that the mission could accommodate additional payloads such as cube satellites. The mission profile is still being finalized, he said, but after some initial deployments, the vehicle could raise its orbit and then lower it to demonstrate an operation of about 300 kilometers, known as very low Earth orbit.

Mira’s performance depends on the amount of payload it carries, but he estimated that the vehicle could deliver a delta or speed change of about 1,000 meters per second with a payload of 300 kilograms. The stored-fuel propulsion system has been extensively tested with a run time of more than 1,000 seconds, while other elements of the vehicle are at various stages of design and production.

According to him, Impulse Space plans additional missions in 2024. The company will leverage the capabilities of other vehicles, such as Relativity Space’s Terran, alongside future SpaceX Transporter missions.

Matsumori said the company is seeing an increasing demand for transportation services in space. “The customer market for LEO or other orbital transfers is growing at about the same rate as space transportation capabilities,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot more customers in the last three months than in the previous six months.”

The number of options for transportation services in space is also growing. During SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission, which launched on January 3, D-Orbit flew two ION satellite carriers that will deploy nine cube satellites and support three deployed payloads. Momentus flew a second vehicle, the Vigoride-5, carrying a cube satellite and a deployed payload. Launcher flew its first Orbiter with eight customers.

Matsumori said Impulse Space plans to differentiate itself from its competitors through performance. “Most of the out there have deltas that are pretty low relative to the mass they carry,” he said. “We are almost at the peak of vehicle capacity.”

Mira is the first of a series of vehicles under development by Impulse Space that can place payloads in or launch directly into fixed orbits in the future. “Space is an infrastructure of opportunity, just like on Earth,” he said. “We have vans, we have bigger vans, and then we have 18-wheelers to do logistics on Earth. Space will be no different.”