Enlarge / Artist’s idea of the Helios area tug. (credit score: Impulse House)
Lately there have been a variety of modest ‘tugs’ introduced on-line to ferry small satellites to designated orbits. These miniature spacecraft present so-called last-mile service and are significantly helpful for satellites that launch as part of rideshare missions and search to achieve a special altitude or inclination than that of the first payload.
Nonetheless these area logistics autos, provided by quite a lot of firms, corresponding to D-Orbit, Momentus, Launcher, and several other others, typically are designed for satellites with a mass of some dozen to a couple hundred kilograms.
What has been missing to this point is a bigger in-space tug that may haul greater satellites to extra distant orbits. That is the market {that a} new spacecraft constructed by Impulse House, Helios, intends to serve.
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