The folks building the factories of the future are certainly having a moment right now.
Yesterday, software-defined manufacturing startup UNION and solid rocket motor-maker X-Bow Systems (pronounced crossbow, btw) teamed up to build “surge-capable” propulsion system production capacity, which X-Bow CGO Maureen Gannon told Tectonic is a “direct response” to the AFRL’s “Endless Forge” initiative.
Zoom and boom: New Mexico-based X-Bow, founded in 2016, is on a mission to shake up the super-consolidated and prime-dominated (L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman) SRM industry.
X-Bow’s pitch is that, by applying advanced manufacturing techniques—including 3D-printing, a patented propellant, and additive manufacturing—to SRM production, the US can build more of the things that zoom and boom faster, and cheaper.
- The company provides, essentially, an end-to-end energetics service: They design, manufacture, test, and even launch systems loaded with their SRMs.
- Their contracts include a $17.8M one with the AFRL in 2023, a $64M one focused on the Army and Navy’s hypersonic SRMs in 2024, another $60M one in 2024 with the Navy, and a $13.9M joint investment with the Army for Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) SRMs last August.
- In February, they successfully tested their 34.5-inch rocket motor, which X-Bow CEO Jason Hundley told Tectonic he thinks was “the largest [SRM] tested by a company not named Northrop Grumman and or Aerojet Rocketdyne.”
- And in March, X-Bow snapped up space-focused hypersonic launch and SRM company Evolution Space to expand its energetics production capacity.
State of the UNION: X-Bow, evidently, is on a bit of a roll, but they’re betting that a little help from some friends in the new-age manufacturing world will take them to the next level. That’s where Texas-based UNION comes in.
UNION’s main idea is that smart factories are a kind of weapons stockpile in and of themselves. The company is building factories—their first is set to come online later this year—using AI-powered manufacturing software to build what’s needed real quick, from 155mm shells to, in the case of their partnership with X-Bow, energetics. Their two main software offerings are:
- Faction, a factory-controlling “command” system that “replac[es] disconnected legacy systems with intelligent agents that take action in real time.”
- Fabric, UNION’s factory “execution layer,” where machines can learn as they run to turn “disconnected machines into responsive systems” that adjust without much human input.
Team up: By pairing UNION’s digital factory system with their propulsion expertise, X-Bow is aiming to create “a flexible, responsive network that can rapidly scale production of critical components,” Gannon told Tectonic. “It’s about revolutionizing how we approach defense manufacturing for the future.”
Forge friends: The partnership is a “direct response” to the Air Force Research Lab’s “Endless Forge” initiative, which aims to modernize the defense industrial base by adopting new manufacturing capabilities and has an estimated total program cost of $149M.
UNION CEO Garret Unclebach told Tectonic that his team will be going to work in X-Bow’s factories to speed up and streamline their partner’s energetics production.
“We’re going to jump in and help with the software running their line to help them get what they want out of their manufacturing,” he said. “Energetics, the quality data behind the energetics [production] runs, is a big piece for them, and that’s one of the first things we’re going to look at, but the partnership is around us helping drive their factories.”
We’re betting that all that is pretty welcome news for a very busy Pentagon currently burning through munition stockpiles pretty much everywhere you look.