HEO, a space technology company specializing in non-Earth imaging (NEI) and in-orbit satellite inspection, announced today a partnership with Impulse Space, a leader in in-space transportation services.
Under the agreement, Impulse will host HEO’s in-space imager, HOLMES-007, onboard a Mira orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) as part of the LEO Express-2 mission. This will be HEO’s third Holmes Imager in space and the first commercial camera dedicated to non-Earth imaging in high Low Earth Orbit (High LEO), presenting new prospects for satellite inspection. This higher orbit will be reachable thanks to Mira’s powerful 5lbf Saiph thrusters.
“We are excited to partner with the Impulse Space team,” said HEO Co-Founder and CEO Will Crowe. “A major challenge for non-Earth imaging is coverage, and this is the first step of a long-term partnership to serve demand for this imaging data across many orbits.” Working hand-in-hand with HEO’s automated smart tasking systems, Mira will provide hosting services such as power, communications, orbit raising, attitude control, and others to successfully complete NEI missions.
“With rapid and responsive maneuverability, Mira is uniquely positioned to help HEO capture valuable imagery,” said Impulse Space founder and CEO Tom Mueller. “Having recently demonstrated several high-precision maneuvers with Mira on our LEO Express-1 mission, including 6DOF attitude control, we’re excited to see how customers can take advantage of our capabilities on future missions.”
HEO feeds data from Holmes Imagers and other satellite sensors into HEO Inspect, an in-orbit satellite inspection software platform that provides invaluable information on spacecraft at scale. Since its unveiling, HEO Inspect has been used by governments, defense agencies, and the commercial sector, serving as a vital tool to achieve high-revisit and timely collection for the rapid identification and characterization of spacecraft. Recently, HEO released HEO Inspect 2.0, which added new features like attitude estimation, pattern-of-life analysis, and rapid identification for space objects.
About HEO
HEO delivers on-demand non-Earth imagery (NEI) and intelligence on spacecraft of interest, so that space players can confidently act in space and on Earth. With our resilient software platform, HEO Inspect, we visually identify spacecraft and assess their status, operation, and anomalous behaviour. HEO modifies ConOps of partner Earth observation satellite constellations and launches own NEI sensors as hosted payloads with the goal to achieve proliferation of NEI sensors on all orbits in the Earth-Moon system. HEO serves government, defence and commercial customers in Asia, Australia, UK, and USA. For more information, visit www.heospace.com.
About Impulse Space
Impulse Space, the in-space transportation company founded by Tom Mueller, is opening access beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with its fleet of in-space transportation vehicles. The flight-proven Mira vehicle uses a nontoxic, high-impulse chemical propulsion system to offer orbital transport, constellation deployment, and precision reentry services to customers throughout LEO. The high-energy Helios vehicle unlocks orbits beyond LEO with its powerful Deneb engine, dropping off payloads in MEO, GEO, heliocentric, lunar, and other planetary orbits. Led by a team that delivered the most reliable rockets in history, Impulse provides economical and efficient in-space transportation by reliably and rapidly getting customers where they want to go. For more information, visit www.impulsespace.com.