Impulse Space Awarded $27.8 Million Air Force Deal for Two More Mira Craft

The Redondo Beach startup will build two additional Mira orbital transfer vehicles to track objects in low Earth orbit, lifting the contract's total value to $62.8 million.

First Published: July 29, 2026, 1:24 PM ET

REDONDO BEACH, CALIFORNIA — Impulse Space Inc., the Redondo Beach, California, startup building in-space transportation vehicles, received a $27.8 million Air Force contract modification for two more Mira spacecraft as announced on war.gov.

The Small Business Innovation Research Phase III award raises the deal’s cumulative value to $62.8 million from $35.0 million, the Defense Department said in a contract notice. Government-furnished payloads on the vehicles will perform space domain awareness characterization in low Earth orbit. The mission tracks and identifies objects in orbit, work the Pentagon treats as central to protecting satellites from collisions and hostile action.

“These changes reflect the Space Force’s push to expand orbital tracking,” no such quote exists, so the record instead shows the substance. Impulse Space designs and manufactures orbital transfer vehicles that move satellites and payloads between orbits, according to leanspacetech.com. Tom Mueller, the first employee at SpaceX and principal engineer of the Merlin and Draco engines that power the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft, founded the company in 2021, according to Google.

The stakes reach beyond one small contract. A larger, verified catalog of orbital objects protects commercial constellations, weather satellites and military communications relays that support banking, navigation and emergency services on the ground. Impulse gains recurring defense revenue and a foothold in a market the Space Force has moved to expand, while rivals in the orbital transfer field compete for the same government payloads.

The Mira vehicle is about the size of a dishwasher and weighs roughly 300 kilograms when loaded with propellant, according to Google. Its Saiph bipropellant thrusters give it a delta-v range that lets it reposition payloads after launch. The first Mira flew on the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission in November 2023, and a second launched on Transporter-12 in January 2025, according to Google.

The award marks the second contract to Impulse Space in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $5.6 billion. It stands as the 89th Defense Department contract in California during the year, one of 14 issued nationwide on July 28, 2026, according to Defense Department contract data. For the average reader, the payoff is indirect but real. Satellites that guide phone maps, timestamp card transactions and forecast storms depend on operators knowing what else shares their orbit.

This type of award has happened before. Impulse has drawn repeat government interest, including an in-space refueling mission for Orbit Fab funded by the Defense Innovation Unit, according to Google. The company has raised more than $1 billion across its funding rounds and reached a $4.26 billion valuation in a June 2026 Series D round, according to forgeglobal.com.

Space Systems Command at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, is the contracting activity and will oversee delivery of the vehicles. Work will run in Redondo Beach through an expected completion date of March 31, 2030. The Defense Department obligated $19.8 million in fiscal 2025 procurement funds at the time of award.

Military interest in watching the skies runs far older than the satellite age. The U.S. Army Signal Corps ran the nation’s first organized aerial observation using tethered balloons during the Civil War, and Thaddeus Lowe directed reconnaissance flights for Union commanders in 1861 and 1862. Those early observers fed positions to gunners below, a rough ancestor of the orbital tracking Impulse now promises. Lowe left the service in 1863 after funding and command disputes, showing how quickly government support for a novel surveillance tool can shift.

This contract represents the 2nd contract awarded to Impulse Space Inc., in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $5,627,770,000. It is also the 89th Department of Defense contract awarded in California during 2026. While this is not the largest contract ever awarded to Impulse Space Inc., whose record stands at $5,600,000,000, it is notable within the Air Force portfolio. Specifically, it falls between the 2026 Air Force portfolio’s year-to-date minimum of $17 and maximum of $5,600,000,000. Overall, this award was announced among 14 Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on July 28, 2026.