The contract is a follow-on Phase II award under the Small Business Innovation Research program and falls within MDA’s Rapid Response Small Launcher Technology effort. X-Bow will develop the interceptor while using its own solid rocket motor manufacturing and flight capabilities.
The award comes as the Pentagon seeks to rebuild U.S. interceptor and rocket motor production capacity that has long been concentrated among a small number of major suppliers. X-Bow said changing missile threats are increasing demand for affordable systems that can be produced at greater scale.
“America can’t out-produce today’s threats with yesterday’s supplier base,” X-Bow Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jason Hundley said. “Our new manufacturing technology lets us bring affordable interceptors and rocket motors to the warfighter faster — and this award is a chance to prove it.”
X-Bow manufactures solid rocket motors for U.S. missiles, interceptors and sub-orbital launch vehicles. Its production approach includes the Air Force Research Laboratory-certified AMSP process and the company’s Rocket Factory in a Box manufacturing system.
The company said those technologies are designed to expand manufacturing capacity as the United States rebuilds weapons stockpiles. X-Bow also supplies fielded RATO motors and propulsion technologies for next-generation hypersonic and strategic programs.
X-Bow is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and operates a dedicated research and development facility in Socorro. The company also maintains a presence in Texas, Mississippi, California, Alabama, Colorado, Utah, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Its investors include Boeing and Lockheed Martin Ventures, along with Crosslink Capital, Razor’s Edge Ventures and other aerospace and venture investors. X-Bow said its revenue and backlog have more than doubled in recent years as demand for its propulsion systems has increased.
The MDA award gives X-Bow an opportunity to demonstrate its low-cost interceptor through development and flight testing. It also places the company within a broader U.S. effort to increase missile-defense production capacity and diversify the solid rocket motor supplier base.
