/Tech1d ago

Impulse Space CEO Tom Mueller Details Mira Helios And Deneb Engine Tech

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#354

Original post

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea#354inTech

Have you seen Tom Mueller's (@lrocket) car collection?

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)

FULL TOUR

The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)

ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings

Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber

Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond

We cover: → Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life) → Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO) → Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F → Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines → In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25 → 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous → Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk → Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (00:49) Inside Impulse Space (02:32) Avionics Bay floor (02:59) Building rockets at home (03:50) Mira and Helios (08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX (09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough (11:42) Testing in Mojave (12:23) Favorite part of the Engine (13:30) How it's 3D Printed (14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything (16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs (17:28) No Modern hardware without software (19:52) The Mill Turn explained (22:42) Payload Deck Design (25:28) Entering the Secret Area (30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors (32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit (32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber (34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future (38:49) Data Centers in Space (40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth (41:10) Working with Elon (42:07) If not CEO, then what? (42:32) Moon matters more than Mars

7:34 AM · Jun 5, 2026 · 8K Views

Sentiment

Users are praising Tom Mueller's insights on Impulse Space engines and calling 3D printing a cheat code for its innovative manufacturing edge.

Pos

96.7%

Neg

3.3%

12 comments with sentiment.

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VIEWS2K

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

"The next big opportunity is to move all that payload, all that cargo, around in space."

"So I started Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse) to do in-space transportation, as opposed to from-Earth-to-space transportation, which was SpaceX."

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LIKES29

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

"I worked on Starship for the last six years at SpaceX."

" When I left, I had the plan of launch mostly being solved or is being solved."

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RETWEETS53

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

Tom Mueller (@lrocket) says his "proudest development" as the 1st Employee at SpaceX was creating the Merlin engine:

"Currently flying on Falcon 9, it is the most reliable rocket engine ever developed, and also the highest thrust to weight of any rocket engine ever developed."

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)

FULL TOUR

The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)

Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber

Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond

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REPLIES2

Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

@lrocket - (7x) Porsche 911s: an RSR, 3 GT3 RSs, 2 R race cars, & a first-year 1964 911 - (2x) Ferraris: F40 + 458 - (1x) 1966 Lotus Elan - (3x) Porsche 962 race cars (one in pieces) - (2x) Ford F-150 Raptors - (1x) Porsche Taycan (likely lemon-lawed) - Several dirt bikes

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Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

" We feel like the next step is in-space transportation, including to the moon and landers on the moon, which we're also bidding on."

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Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea

@lrocket But wait, there's more

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Ashlee Vance@ashleevance

@MollySOShea @lrocket I have!

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Vinod Dar@Vkdjupiter

The factory tours make American innovation tangible and the skill and learning capacity of American workers palpable. If these videos were routinely played in high schools, vocational schools and community colleges there could be a surge of interest amongst young people in factory work or in starting hard tech businesses upon graduation.

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