The company has invested $75 million of its own capital into the facility, which has grown from 40 employees in January 2024 to over 100 today. In just 18 months, Anduril has progressed from groundbreaking to operational status, test-firing more than 700 motors since January.
The McHenry site is designed to scale rapidly, with plans to produce 6,000 tactical motors annually by the end of 2026. An adjacent original factory on the same complex will continue to focus on low-rate production and advanced research and development.
A recent award from the US Department of Defense under the Defense Production Act will support Anduril’s expansion. The company stated that this public-private partnership is key to “scaling quickly and sustainably,” while also reflecting the Department’s confidence in Anduril’s innovative manufacturing approach.
Brian Schimpf, CEO and co-founder of Anduril, highlighted the importance of dependable equipment for military success. “When the shooting starts, the tools that our warfighters do battle with should work without fail,” he said.
Anduril’s entry into the SRM sector challenges a longstanding duopoly and seeks to address long-standing concerns about the fragility of the US defence industrial base. “Without the building blocks of American firepower, nothing works. Troops wait. Deterrence fails,” the company said.
The company has already achieved key milestones, including two successful live fire tests in April 2025 for the US Navy’s Standard Missile programme. This class of missile has recently been used to intercept Houthi-launched attacks in the Red Sea and Iranian missiles in the Middle East.
In March, Anduril was also selected by the US Army to develop a 4.75-inch SRM for long-range artillery systems. The goal is to increase firepower efficiency, allowing 30 guided rockets to launch from a single HIMARS pod.
Swedish defence firm Saab has further chosen Anduril to design and produce SRMs for its Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb, reinforcing Anduril’s growing role in the global defence supply chain. The company emphasised it is making “substantive steps” toward full-rate production by 2026.
Unlike traditional SRM factories, Anduril’s new facility incorporates modern design and automation. It employs robotics and digital analytics throughout production, significantly improving both safety and speed.
The factory also uses a “one-piece flow” manufacturing model, enabling parallel processes to occur simultaneously and reducing downtime. Its bladeless high-speed mixer — said to be the only one of its kind globally — is central to the site’s operations.
Further innovation includes the ALITEC fuel formulation, an aluminium-lithium alloy designed to increase missile range by up to 40% compared to legacy motors. The combination of modular design and smart scheduling is intended to deliver high-quality SRMs at speed and scale.
Anduril stated, “Victory must be engineered on the factory floor.” With this new capability, the company is positioning itself as a core contributor to what it calls the “Arsenal of Democracy”.
“By building high-performance solid rocket motors quickly, safely, and at scale, we’re giving the U.S. and our allies the tools they need to deter and defeat any adversary,” the company said. “We are proud to stand up this capability in Mississippi, and prouder still to be powering the next generation of American deterrence.
