Ursa Main, a Colorado-based firm specializing in leveraging additive manufacturing (AM) for rocket propulsion, introduced a profitable missile flight check performed with Raytheon, an RTX firm, as a part of a US Military contract. For the long-range missile utility, Raytheon selected Ursa Main’s stable rocket motor (SRM) AM course of, which the latter firm first publicly introduced in November 2023, following intensive success with growing a modular workflow for liquid rocket engine manufacturing.
In response to Ursa Main, the subsequent part of the Raytheon collaboration will entail incorporation of enhancements within the underlying manufacturing methods, in the direction of the tip of further flight exams in 2025. Ursa Main anticipates that qualification of the method will occur by 2026.
The Division of Protection (DoD) has signaled persistently rising demand for 3D printed rocket engines usually, and 3D printed SRMs particularly, owing to the shortages confronted by provide chains counting on typical manufacturing, and the cost-efficiency potential of on-demand manufacturing. Ursa Main is one in all a handful of startups which have reaped the rewards of this shift in DoD’s strategy to procurement.
In a press launch, Ursa Main CEO Dan Jablonsky mentioned, “Ursa Main has utilized [AM] to finish motor improvement, manufacturing, and testing in unprecedented timelines, leading to almost 300 static check fires this yr. The progressive manufacturing methods we make use of are yielding agile [SRM] options with the design flexibility wanted to develop the capabilities of the US army. Ursa Main is poised to scale the manufacturing of higher-performing [SRMs] on the tempo and quantity the nation requires and at a worth the nation can afford.”
President of Land and Air Protection Methods at Raytheon, Tom Laliberty, mentioned, “These long-range [SRMs] will permit the US Military and allies to strike farther and quicker than something our adversaries have of their arsenals. This long-range rocket motor know-how fills the important function of offering inexpensive precision fires, whereas rising vary, security, and journal depth.”
As I famous earlier this week in a narrative about US Navy testing of 3D printed bomb casings, AM ought to be a serious winner of any Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) efforts to cut back waste within the Pentagon funds. Ursa Main is maybe the corporate most instantly able to make the case that AM should be a centerpiece of any practical technique to streamline DoD procurement.
Amongst different components within the firm’s favor, Ursa Main is printing rocket motors for all three main branches of the US army, which may very well be an enormous enhance to the crucial process of standardizing AM actions throughout the DoD as a complete. Carrying out that process is a requirement for the success of any critical push to deploy AM at scale as a protection {hardware} cost-reducer.
A partnership between a serious prime like Raytheon and a small newcomer like Ursa Main additionally units a vital precedent for a way AM can truly cross the brink into changing into a roughly everlasting a part of the protection funds. The extra circumstances we see of this form of collaboration, the extra motive we now have to be optimistic about AM’s future as a authentic instrument for manufacturing at scale.
Picture courtesy of Ursa Main
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