The Defense Department has awarded X-Bow Systems a $64 million contract to position the startup as a second supplier of large-diameter solid rocket motors (SRMs) for two Army and Navy hypersonic weapons programs, an award that will help the company move beyond the figurative “valley of death” where many venture capital-backed companies languish while strengthening the defense industrial base.
The award is dated Sept. 21 but was only posted last Friday by the DoD Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization Office, which is focused on addressing supply chain and industrial base challenges.
X-Bow, pronounced cross-bow, will develop and manufacture SRMs to be qualified as a second source for the Navy-designed hypersonic all-up-round used in its Conventional Prompt Strike Weapon System, and the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon System. Both intermediate-range strike weapons are being developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT]. Northrop Grumman [NOC] is the current SRM supplier for both programs and subcontracts directly to Lockheed Martin.
X-Bow’s contract is for just over three years and calls for the Albuquerque-based company to deliver various test articles and flight hardware as part of the qualification effort that, if successful, is expected to lead to production work. Whether the government purchases the SRMs directly and furnishes them to the prime contractor or directs Lockheed Martin to compete them between the two suppliers is undetermined at present, Jason Hundley, founder and CEO of X-Bow, told Defense Daily on Monday.
X-Bow was founded in 2016 but only emerged from stealth in 2022. The company has capabilities in energetics, rocket motors, and launch vehicles. X-Bow also has expertise in additive manufacturing, in particular for its energetics, a key enabler the company says will lower production costs while increasing production rates.
Initially, X-Bow will not be using its additive manufacturing techniques for the propellants but will demonstrate lower production costs given the novel design of its SRMs that Hundley said is more akin to an assembly line approach to manufacturing that a single cast approach typically used.
The contract does include unfunded options that the government could leverage to further develop X-Bow’s additive manufacturing techniques for the propellants to reduce risk, Hundley said. The company could also use its own venture funding for this as well, he added.
For the qualification effort, the propellants will be produced according to X-Bow’s design by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division in Maryland, where the Navy has energetics capabilities. X-Bow employees will be embedded at Indian Head for the work, Hundley said.
The Navy’s Strategic Systems Program Office has technical oversight of X-Bow’s work under the contract. Hundley said getting the award is a big deal because it means the program office and the Office of the Secretary of Defense “believe in us.”
The SRMs as part of the Navy hypersonic weapons will be going on nuclear submarines and the Navy must have confidence in the technology, he said.
Once X-Bow’s SRMs meet the Navy’s qualification standards, they will be qualified for the Army, he said.
The government’s goal with the qualification contract is to obtain a second source for the large-diameter SRMs, inject more affordability into the programs, and expand the industrial base, Hundley said.
“This breakthrough collaboration with DoD further accelerates X-Bow’s existing commitment to provide the nation’s new affordable hypersonic solution,” Hundley said in a separate statement. “X-Bow’s advanced manufacturing technology for solid rocket motors delivers revolutionary and urgently needed advances in SRM production by reducing cost and increasing industrial base capacity.”
If X-Bow successfully executes on the qualification effort, the two Army and Navy hypersonic weapons programs are just the “tip of the iceberg of what we can compete on,” Hundley said in the interview.
The ongoing Russo-Ukraine war has highlighted challenges producing weapons like munitions and missiles and their component parts in large quantities to meet the demands of a long conflict, forcing DoD to put more focus on strengthening the supply chains of the defense industrial base chains.
The Pentagon’s January 2021 Industrial Capabilities Report to Congress pointed out that emerging hypersonic weapon systems “will tap into new areas of the industrial base, but will also tax some of the existing base, particularly elements that support conventional missile production within the sub-tier supplier base.”
There are currently two main U.S.-based SRM suppliers: Northrop Grumman and L3Harris Technologies [LHX].
X-Bow is backed by venture capital but the company has also benefited from government research and development funding. In late September, the company received nearly $18 million from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to improve its additive manufacturing technology for SRM propellants to reduce costs and speed production.
In April, X-Bow said it received a potential $60 million Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) from AFRL’s AFWERX unit that is focused on nurturing the defense innovation ecosystem. The STRATFI award is a combination of government funding, private investment, and matching Small Business Innovation Research funds.
X-Bow will be qualifying a variant of its Ballesta SRM for the second source effort. The Ballesta has been flight-tested on the company’s rail-launched Bolt rocket, but the 34.5-inch SRM being developed and qualified for the hypersonic weapons will be canister-launched.
The Ballesta is spin stabilized, whereas the variant being developed for the Army and Navy has thrust vector control, Hundley said.
The rockets being developed by X-Bow will have two stages, an upper stage motor and a boost stage motor, each with different masses and nozzles.