WASHINGTON — A new generation of defense technology startups is taking an unconventional approach to building weapons faster and cheaper, drawing on supply chains from the auto industry, oil and gas sector, and even pharmaceutical manufacturing.
The push comes as demand for rocket motors — used to power missiles and other weapons — has skyrocketed. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 through the U.S. attack on Iran, the United States has burned through more than 50,000 rockets, missiles, and other projectiles, according to Pentagon data. In response, Washington is committing $53 billion and loosening procurement rules to boost production of critical missiles and rockets.
Top executives at major defense contractors including Lockheed, Boeing, and Raytheon parent RTX have all sounded the alarm that shortages of solid rocket motors are slowing missile production. That gap has opened the door for Silicon Valley-style startups eager to compete — and profit — in a sector long controlled by a handful of established players, according to ten industry executives, experts, and U.S. officials who spoke with Reuters.
These newcomers still have a lot to prove. None have yet scaled up to the level needed to replace legacy contractors, though many are already producing rocket motors for existing missiles and some are building complete missiles from scratch.
Established solid rocket motor manufacturers Northrop Grumman and L3Harris say they aren’t standing still, noting they’ve been investing in new technologies like 3D printing and advanced mixing techniques of their own.
Car Parts Guiding Missiles
California-based Castelion, which produces solid rocket motors and hypersonic weapons, found an unlikely resource in the automotive world. The company is using sophisticated electronic processors — known as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays — originally developed for advanced driver assistance systems and electric vehicles. According to Chief Operating Officer Sean Pitt, these components can be purchased at one-tenth the cost and obtained six times faster than comparable aerospace-grade versions.
Castelion also turned to the oil and gas industry for high-pressure tubing. Instead of waiting on aerospace suppliers with lengthy delivery timelines, the company sources precision-machined metal tubes designed to withstand the extreme heat and pressure involved in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Those tubes meet the physical demands of a rocket motor but are available from far more vendors at lower prices. Castelion, recently valued at nearly $3 billion, has secured major Pentagon contracts to produce more than 500 hypersonic weapons.
Pharmaceutical Techniques Power Rocket Fuel Mixing
Startup Anduril, which has accumulated several billion dollars in defense contracts and carries a valuation of $61 billion, is borrowing a mixing technique from the drug manufacturing industry to process rocket motor propellant.
The company has acquired bladeless mixing machines from Colorado-based FlackTek that can handle multi-hundred-kilogram batches of propellant in minutes rather than hours. Anduril says the technology delivers more than ten times the production throughput compared to its previous mixing systems and produces more than 24 times the output of conventional industrial mixers — which function more like oversized kitchen mixers with paddles that require time-consuming cleaning between uses.
The same centrifugal mixing technology is used in producing precision pharmaceutical compounds, including liposome-based cancer treatments, where consistency and contamination control are equally critical.
Experts caution that breaking into the solid rocket motor business is no easy feat. Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed to the complexity involved, describing “the painstaking, multi-step manufacturing process of casting, curing, baking, x-raying and sanding that solid-fuel rocket motors require — followed by rigorous inspection.” He added that curing ovens and X-ray equipment remain persistent bottlenecks across the industry.
3D Printing Slashes Production Timelines
Three-dimensional printing is also transforming how quickly new weapons can be built. A 2024 case study from Northrop Grumman found that switching from traditional machined metal tooling to 3D-printed polymer tools cut the time needed to set up a production line from roughly a year down to about six weeks.
New Mexico-based X-Bow Systems specializes in using 3D printing for both propellants and rocket motor components. The company says it can reduce the time to establish a new production line from the typical three-to-six-year range down to about twelve months. X-Bow already holds a $191 million Pentagon contract for hundreds of solid rocket motors.
Texas-based Firehawk Aerospace, founded in 2020, also relies on 3D printing and claims its process cuts rocket fuel production time from as long as 60 days down to just 7 hours — at one-tenth the traditional cost. The company says custom-designed missiles can be ready for testing within months. Firehawk has received backing from venture capital firm 1789 Capital, a fund in which President Donald Trump’s son is a partner.
Despite the innovation, government purchasing habits remain a hurdle. The Pentagon has historically bought rockets on an annual basis, creating unpredictable swings in demand. Lukas Czinger, CEO of Divergent Technologies, which manufactures missile components, put the challenge plainly: “How can we get good multi-year agreements that don’t roll off when administration changes? That’s what businesses need to perform at low cost.”
