Helios

Bring the Deneb-powered high-energy kick stage through qualification to its inaugural launch. Helios is the vehicle the company's GEO and cislunar business depends on, and it also gates both the Space Force's VICTUS SURGO mission and the debut Caravan 1 GEO rideshare mission, which carries commercial anchor customers SES, Astranis, and Infinite Orbits and has a fully booked, closed manifest. As of August 2026, Impulse and the Space Force both target the first half of 2027 for Helios's first flights, a more precise window than the general 2027 target cited in July 2026.

Execute the Tactically Responsive Space missions awarded under Impulse's SBIR Phase III contract with Space Systems Command, now worth $90.8M cumulative: VICTUS SURGO, where Helios delivers a Mira carrying a commercial optical payload to geosynchronous orbit, VICTUS SALO 1, a low Earth orbit mission with an MIT-built payload flying on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare, and the VICTUS SALO 2 and SALO 3 missions added in August 2026, each delivering a Mira to host government payloads in low Earth orbit. Space Systems Command now targets the first half of 2027 for SURGO and SALO 1.

Ride Helios to geosynchronous orbit, detach, and use Anduril's mission data processor, long-wave infrared imager, and other sensor payloads to autonomously image and maneuver around designated objects without direct human control, a strategically watched capability given how much high-value military and commercial hardware sits in GEO. Anduril and Impulse originally targeted late 2026 for this demo when they announced it in September 2025, but it rides the same Helios vehicle now confirmed for a first half of 2027 debut, pushing the demo's realistic window to 2027 as well.

After Caravan 1's closed first-half-2027 manifest, Impulse has booked Caravan 2 for the first quarter of 2028 with a waitlist, plus a shared Helios mission in 2028 and Caravan 3 in the fourth quarter of 2028, as it tries to move GEO rideshare from about one mission a year toward two. The step only matters if Helios flies in 2027.