Kick Stages and Orbital Transfer Vehicles
How do satellites get from where a rocket drops them to where they need to be, and is that a business?
Chapter summary
As launch becomes dominated by large rockets flying to a few standard orbits, a "last-mile" industry is growing to move satellites from those orbits to their final ones.
Key takeaways
- 1
Orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) and kick stages ride on a large launch, then take customers' satellites to different altitudes, inclinations or even geostationary and lunar orbits.
- 2
Impulse Space had flown three missions of its Mira vehicle by September 2026, raised $500 million in mid-2026 at a reported $4.26 billion valuation, and plans to fly its high-energy Helios kick stage in 2027.
- 3
Italy's D-Orbit, France's Exotrail and others serve smaller satellites.
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