Donald Trump has turned to Impulse Space, a young orbital towing company, for help building the space-based layer of his Golden Dome missile defense plan. The deal, first reported by Bloomberg, pairs Impulse with Anduril Industries on Pentagon-backed prototypes for ”space based interceptors” – a concept that sounds cleaner on paper than it does in orbit.
The choice says a lot about the state of the space-defense market: there are not many companies with the right hardware, and even fewer with a proven record. SpaceX is an obvious giant, but its satellites have had their own public fireworks, while other contractors have been tied up in delays and litigation. Impulse, by contrast, is newer and smaller, but that may be enough to get a seat at the table.
What Impulse Space actually does
Impulse was founded in 2021 by former SpaceX co-founder Tom Mueller and builds orbital transfer vehicles, better known as space tugs. These craft are meant to move satellites and cargo between orbits, which is useful for everything from repositioning assets to eventually hauling dead hardware out of the way.
The company is still early in its life cycle. It launched its first orbital transfer vehicle in 2023, a 650-pound craft about the size of a chunky dishwasher. That is not exactly a résumé built for missile defense, but the Pentagon does love a prototype, and the defense world has never been shy about funding ambition before proof.
Space-based interceptors are still more theory than hardware
Orbital transfer vehicles have been studied for decades. NASA looked at the idea in the late 1960s, but budget cuts in the 1970s killed the effort before it became real. The agency came back to the category in 2025, commissioning feasibility studies from six satellite companies, including Impulse, on low-cost tug designs.
That background matters because no one has yet demonstrated a spacecraft successfully intercepting a missile from orbit. The Golden Dome project is therefore being built on a stack of maybes: maybe the hardware scales, maybe the economics work, maybe the politics hold. ”Maybe” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
- Impulse Space launched its first OTV in 2023.
- The craft weighed 650 pounds.
- The Pentagon deal covers prototypes of ”space based interceptors.”
- Impulse works as a subcontractor under Anduril.
Golden Dome has an old familiar smell
There is also a reason the comparison to Ronald Reagan’s ”Star Wars” system keeps showing up: huge missile-defense ideas are politically seductive and technically punishing. Contractors can make money on studies, prototypes, and contract extensions long before anyone proves the concept can work against a real attack.
So Impulse may win more than prestige if this keeps moving. The company gets a defense foothold, Anduril gets to keep selling the future, and the Pentagon gets another chance to test whether space can be turned into a shield instead of just a place to park expensive things. The real question is whether this ends as a working weapons layer or just another very costly diagram.