#spacex-patent

#spacex-patent

Impulse Space, founded in 2021 by former SpaceX co-founder Tom Mueller, is an up and coming player in the wacky world of space tugs, more professionally known as 'orbital transfer vehicles.' OTVs are satellites designed to carry spaceborn cargo to various orbits.

I'm grateful for folks like Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos, and Sir Richard Branson that have put their resources on the line for a capability for the good of all humankind right now.

Pad 40 has been the primary Falcon 9 launch site for most of the rocket's history, while Pad 39A provided a location for crew launches and an augmentation to support SpaceX's growing launch cadence. But there are signs the Falcon 9 launch cadence, which reached 165 missions last year, may be peaking as the company turns its attention to Starship. And SpaceX has steadily reduced the time it takes to reconfigure Pad 40 between launches, cutting the turnaround time to less than 48 hours.

The company is planning to launch a 1,100-pound satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket in October as part of an audacious proof of concept. The goal is to test water as the fuel for both electrical and chemical propulsion, processes that involve shooting out a stream of plasma with the use of a magnetic field and burning fuel at high temperature and pressure to generate thrust, respectively.