It’s been a busy few days for the folks over at Firehawk.
Yesterday, energetics and rocket motor-maker Firehawk Aerospace cut the ribbon at a big ol’ rocket integration facility in Mississippi, where, as told in an exclusive release to Tectonic, the company has snagged a contract to assemble Hydra-70 rockets. To cap things off, they’ll break ground on a new $100M, 340-acre 3D-printed propellant plant in Oklahoma tomorrow.
Not bad for a week’s work—and it’s just Wednesday.
On Fire: Firehawk should be a familiar name to Tectonic readers. The Texas-based company, founded by CEO Will Edwards in 2019, is laser-focused on applying modern manufacturing techniques—like 3D printing—to propellant and motor production.
- Firehawk holds propellant and solid rocket motor (SRM) contracts with the Army Applications Laboratory and Air Force Research Lab.
- Last September, they raised $60M in a Series C funding round led by 1789 Capital, followed up by an additional “eight-figure” strategic investment from Hanwha Defense USA.
- Last month, they inked a deal with new-age manufacturing startup UNION to pump out 155mm shells.
And they’re expanding quickly.
Ole Miss(ile): At a ribbon-cutting at their 640-acre facility in Crawford, Mississippi, yesterday, which drew some big names, including Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Mississippi congressman Rep. Trent Kelly, Firehawk rolled out their pitch for rebuilding the rocket-manufacturing base.
- The facility is home to a “bunker that can store 50,000 pounds of one energetics, an 8,000-square-foot integration facility, and a 4,000-square-foot office, and we’re creating plans to expand on it,” Edwards told Tectonic.
- Firehawk will “start off initially as the integrator” for small-diameter rockets at the Mississippi facility, where they’re already able to produce 40,000 per year and building up to pump out 10,000 rockets a month by 2028.
- They’ll invest “tens of millions” in Crawford, according to Edwards, to scale production up to “125,000 in the near future.”
Plus, they’ve got some friends in high places rockin’ with them.
“This new facility will expand domestic production of high-performance rocket systems, injecting competition and innovation into our industrial base,” Wicker said at the ribbon-cutting. “The opening of this facility in Crawford, and the jobs it will create for this community point to a transformational shift in American defense investment.”
Hydra hype: To kick things off in Crawford, Firehawk snagged an Army contract to assemble and deliver a prototype for a Hydra-70 rocket variant—a combo of a warhead, the standard MK66 Mod 4 rocket motor, and the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) laser-guidance system. Together, that forms what the Army dubs the “AGR-21C Multi-use Guided Rocket, Surface Attack.”
- The Hydra-70 is a time-tested workhorse in the Pentagon’s rocket arsenal, designed as a low-cost air-to-ground system primarily launched from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. It’s turned into a laser-guided missile with APKWS (which has also become a popular c-UAS interceptor option).
- The AGR-21C is a “critical munition that fills the capability gap between a HELLFIRE Missile and an unguided rocket,” according to the Army’s contract details.
- Firehawk was one of a handful of companies selected for the first phase of the program, which the Army is putting between $32M and $150M towards. Firehawk couldn’t disclose their share of that pot.
All in all, the Mississippi facility, rocket contract, and tomorrow’s groundbreaking at their Oklahoma campus—which will have the capacity to pump out “about a million and a half pounds of energetics a year” when it comes online in early 2027—has Edwards feeling pretty hyped about the ‘hawk.
“We’re going to be crossing nine figures in revenue next year,” Edwards told Tectonic. “Firehawk has the technology, the partnerships with the primes, and over 1,000 acres of production capacity that will allow us to build our company to do hundreds of millions of dollars in production contracts, not R&D revenue.”