Introducing the Upgraded Mira: Bringing In-Space Mobility to GEO and Beyond
The upgraded Mira will take flight on its first mission, the fully manifested LEO Express 3, later this year.
Meet the next generation of in-space mobility. With two successful missions behind it, Mira has showcased responsive, record-setting maneuverability in LEO. Now, an upgraded design is set to deliver even greater performance beyond LEO, bringing Mira to more orbits while building on a strong flight heritage.
The upgraded Mira is engineered to rapidly maneuver within high-energy orbits. It delivers more delta-v, more power, and more autonomy, enabling new mission profiles across LEO, MEO, GEO, and beyond. The upgraded vehicle’s first flight, LEO Express 3, is fully manifested and scheduled to fly later this year.
What's New
Ready for GEO Missions
Mira now has enhanced radiation-tolerant avionics, built to operate in higher orbits. It's also equipped with in-house reaction wheels for long-duration missions, allowing Mira to remain in GEO for several years with fine pointing control and minimal propellant expenditure. Mira’s radios and antennas have also been upgraded to maintain reliable communication across greater distances.
More Power for Payloads
Instead of fixed solar arrays, the upgraded Mira now features deployable arrays that can also be articulated to better track the sun. Payload hosting is a key use case for Mira, and with these changes, Mira offers customers more than double the power for their missions.
More Delta-V
The Saiph thrusters that powered Mira’s record-setting burns in LEO have been upgraded from 5 lbf to 6 lbf. With eight thrusters per vehicle, that’s 20% more thrust. Additionally, the upgraded Mira can now carry more propellant; altogether, this amounts to a 25% increase in delta-v, with Mira capable of achieving 900 m/s of delta-v for a 100 kg payload. These updates make Mira even better equipped for maneuvers where time matters – like rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), space domain awareness (SDA) operations, and precise constellation deployment.
Upgraded Software Capabilities
Building on a legacy of autonomous space operations, Mira’s upgraded software stack pushes performance even further by supporting dynamic, software-defined mission reconfigurations directly on orbit. Operators can effortlessly adjust algorithm parameters, reprioritize taskings, and update command sequences mid-mission, thanks to Mira’s modular and extensible architecture.
Mira’s upgraded software is also designed to further increase its “hands-off” operations, bringing even more autonomous functionality to tasks like executing payload ops, maintaining station, and downlinking data. This not only slashes operational costs but also enhances on-orbit resiliency, freeing customers to focus on outcomes instead of infrastructure.
Cybersecure for National Security Missions
The design upgrade for Mira incorporates security considerations from beginning to end, integrating NSA Type 1 cryptographic solutions to protect mission data and command links against advanced adversarial threats. The architecture complies with CNSSP-12 requirements, ensuring end-to-end security for processing, storage, and transmission of classified information in space.
More Flexibility for Rideshare and Payloads
Mira’s form factor has been redesigned to provide customers with maximum flexibility for their payloads and missions.The new single bay design is compatible off-the-shelf with Helios and optimized to maximize customer payload volume on SpaceX Rideshare launches, offering more payload room and configuration options than before. Mira maintains the ability to fly on other medium- or heavy-lift launch vehicles as well.
Enhanced Pointing and Control
Mira now features four reaction wheels and four star trackers, designed and built by Impulse. These upgrades enable even lower pointing error in any attitude, supporting precise maneuverability and complex operations for missions such as SDA operations and Earth observation.
Next Up: LEO Express 3 and Beyond
The upgraded Mira will fly its first mission later this year on LEO Express 3, which is already fully manifested. The LEO Express 3 mission includes several significant and rapid maneuvers to support customer objectives, demonstrating Mira’s performance capabilities. After deploying several customer satellites in their desired orbits, other hosted payloads will remain on Mira for the full mission, leveraging its power, pointing, and autonomy.
Beyond LEO Express 3, the upgraded Mira is already slated for several other missions, including the VICTUS SURGO and VICTUS SALO missions, where Mira’s maneuverability and precision will support tactically responsive space (TacRS) capabilities for the Department of Defense.
Vertically Integrated – and Scaling
The upgraded Mira builds on a foundation of successful flight heritage, taking proven capabilities and expanding them through innovative new designs. Impulse’s expert team engineers, builds, and tests the majority of systems in-house—from avionics to GNC to batteries. This requires a rare combination of skills, but creates improved performance, faster timelines, and greater cost efficiency.
With more delta-v, more power, and more autonomy, Mira is designed to increase in-space mobility. And it’s not just vehicle performance that’s scaling. Mira’s production rate is increasing, enabling Impulse to support proliferated architectures and rapid replenishment requirements.
Today’s missions require never-before-seen levels of maneuverability throughout—and beyond—Earth’s orbits. Mira provides the mobility operators need, allowing them to focus on the mission instead of the infrastructure. It offers performance without sacrificing reliability or cost effectiveness, and we’re excited to see what it inspires our customers to do next.
And, it’s just one way we’re accelerating our future in space.
About Impulse Space
Impulse Space, the in-space mobility leader, is accelerating our future beyond Earth beginning with its fleet of cost-effective, high-performance space vehicles: Helios and Mira. The Helios kick stage unlocks high-energy orbits with its powerful Deneb engine, rapidly transporting payloads from LEO to MEO, GEO, heliocentric, lunar, and other planetary orbits. The flight-proven Mira enables precise maneuverability and rapid responsiveness for hosting, deployment, and rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) across any orbit. Founded by Tom Mueller and led by a team of industry pioneers, Impulse Space is transforming in-space mobility by reliably and rapidly getting customers where they want to go. And they're just getting started. For more information, visit www.impulsespace.com
