Rocket engine and motor developer Ursa Major and the Navy are jointly investing $25 million in the startup’s advanced manufacturing approach to solid rocket motors with the funding targeted at expanding the 3D printing capability for multiple large solid rocket motors, the company said on Tuesday.
The joint investment builds on a small contract the Navy awarded the company in March to apply its Lynx additive manufacturing capability to the Mk 104 dual thrust solid rocket motor (SRM), the second stage of the Standard Missile-6 anti-air weapon. The Navy in late 2023 and early 2024 awarded Ursa Major and several other companies Mk 104 design and development contracts as potential alternative sources of supply for the SM-6’s rocket motors, which are currently supplied by L3Harris Technologies [LHX] (Defense Daily, April 30).
The new investment, which is evenly split between the company and the government, will enhance Ursa Major’s Lynx 3D printing technology and open the aperture on the programs Ursa Major can support with its SRMs.
“The way I’d frame it is, this is the second investment by the Navy in Ursa’s approach toward solid rocket motors,” Bill Murray, the company’s chief product officer, told Defense Daily last Friday before the official announcement. “The prototype is of a similar manufacturing approach that we would employ on motors like Mk 104 as well as many other products. And that’s really the entire concept behind Lynx, is that you know, an investment to continue to mature the technology base and the manufacturing approach applied to multiple programs.”
Ursa Major routinely hot fires SRMs and has “validated” its Lynx process for different motor sizes, Murray said. Now with the new funding the company will “build some big motors, static fire them, and eventually fly them, so that you really can make sure that offices like the Navy and the Army and the Air Force are bought into the approach.”
Murray said the size of the motors for the prototype effort will be in the 13-inch class, which is similar to the Mk 104.
The test fires of the prototype motors will begin in early 2025 and continue throughout the year, he said.
Ultimately, it is about “maturing the entire technology stack” and routinely testing and deploying Lynx to other products that the company is working on for the Defense Department, Murray said.
“So, next year is about really maturing the technology and getting into low-rate production with the Lynx method,” he said.
The government’s portion of the investment is a partnership between the Navy and the Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, which stood up in 2022 to attract investment for national security priorities. Ursa Major is working with the Naval Air Weapons Center China Lake in California and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division in Maryland.
Ursa Major is also developing and flying liquid rocket engines.