The U.S. Navy awarded defense manufacturer Ursa Major two separate contracts worth a combined $137 million to develop and qualify advanced tactical solid rocket motors for the Compact Air-to-Air Missile (CAAM) program and the Naval Modular Missile (NMM) program. The awards use the company’s Lynx manufacturing approach, expanding energetics production capacity and applying advanced additive manufacturing techniques to deliver tactical motors that can be produced at scale.
“Our Lynx manufacturing approach and growing energetics capacity enable us to design, build, test, qualify and field these motors faster to support the warfighter,” Ursa Major President of Solid Missile Systems Jason Meredith said. “Production is the bottleneck in missile programs right now, and that’s the part we’ve been building for.”
For CAAM, an air-launched missile for current and next-generation aircraft, Ursa Major is designing a high-performance compact, low-cost 7-inch solid rocket motor designed to achieve performance requirements inside a tight volume and at low unit cost using Highly Loaded Grain. The design is being developed with the same manufacturing methods planned for full production, so it can be built at scale once qualified.
Ursa Major, which recently announced plans to become a publicly traded company, will also support the NMM medium-range variant by providing a 10-inch solid rocket motor designed for high-rate production and compatibility with existing Navy shipboard launch systems. The effort is aimed at delivering an operational motor that meets Navy performance and safety requirements while supporting high annual production volumes.
The awards build on Ursa Major’s existing solid rocket motor work with the Navy. In July, the military branch awarded the company $10 million to advance its MK 104 design. In February, Ursa Major completed a $25 million cost-share Solid Rocket Motor Manufacturing Pathfinder Program with the Navy and the Office of Strategic Capital, designing, building and static-firing a 10-inch Highly Loaded Grain motor and developing a proprietary propellant for it.
