Ursa Major Technologies

[trimeta]

This is a good move, why compete in the tiny launch market against super competitive new space companies, when you can compete in the much more lucrative defense market against old dinosaurs?

Ursa Major was never competing directly against "super competitive new space companies," since they only built the engines. Their concept was "during a gold rush, sell shovels": all these companies proposing small launchers need engines, and if they can buy them from Ursa Major, that gets them to market faster while also putting money in Ursa Major's pockets.

Of course, the collapse of the small launch race put that business model into question, so it certainly makes sense for Ursa Major to pivot to solid rocket motors, which may have a more reliable customer base.

[Asteroza]

This is a good move, why compete in the tiny launch market against super competitive new space companies, when you can compete in the much more lucrative defense market against old dinosaurs?

Ursa Major was never competing directly against "super competitive new space companies," since they only built the engines. Their concept was "during a gold rush, sell shovels": all these companies proposing small launchers need engines, and if they can buy them from Ursa Major, that gets them to market faster while also putting money in Ursa Major's pockets.

Of course, the collapse of the small launch race put that business model into question, so it certainly makes sense for Ursa Major to pivot to solid rocket motors, which may have a more reliable customer base.

I wouldn't necessarily characterize the defense market as more reliable. The peace dividend post cold war hollowed out much of the SRM industrial base. It's only the recent conflict in ukraine that has pushed defense organizations to suddenly accelerate existing replacement programs for small to medium SRM's, to backfill stocks of existing low rate production ATGM's and rocket artillery, as well as accelerating the progress on brand new weapon programs intended to replace legacy systems no longer being produced with roughly equivalent drop-in replacements. The immense consumption of munitions substantially accelerated the system replacement schedules and the production schedule for those replacements. If that conflict hadn't started up, the defense market would still be in low rate "peace mode" production and system replacement, and Ursa would have a much harder time wedging themselves into the supply chain. Defense procurement is very conservative, so getting buy-in for new production methods would have been difficult, especially with increased insensitive munition standards. But, now that production capability is right now totally insufficient, any new production player that can step in is warmly welcomed.

That said, are they 3D printing SRM casings and propellant molds? Will the casings be metal or composite? Seems like a 3D printing rocket company like Relativity might be better experienced here, though Relativity might not be so well suited due to the rather small dimensions involved. If the majority of your value is that you happen to have a lot of additive printers in the correct sizes and materials types, then what's stopping the old boys from just ordering up a load of Stratasys printers and doing the exact same thing?

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/ursamajortech/status/1730667616815956467

We're thrilled to have raised $138 million in Series D funding to help the U.S. scale its missile arsenal. Read more from @Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2023/11/30/ursa-major-ukraine-pentagon-missiles/

[TrevorMonty]

https://twitter.com/ursamajortech/status/1730667616815956467

We're thrilled to have raised $138 million in Series D funding to help the U.S. scale its missile arsenal. Read more from @Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2023/11/30/ursa-major-ukraine-pentagon-missiles/

In other words stuff launch vehicle engines, the real money is in SRMs for missiles.

[edzieba]

https://twitter.com/ursamajortech/status/1730667616815956467

We're thrilled to have raised $138 million in Series D funding to help the U.S. scale its missile arsenal. Read more from @Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2023/11/30/ursa-major-ukraine-pentagon-missiles/

In other words stuff launch vehicle engines, the real money is in SRMs for missiles.

Or use one to fund the other. Or do both. The 'Dual-use' street goes both ways.

[Robotbeat]

This is a long tradition. Von Braun had dreams of space travel while proposing and pursuing the V-2 (hoping that by selling out to the German/Nazi war machine, he could further his space goals). The N-1 Moon rocket was absurdly proposed as an ICBM launcher in order to get more traction with Soviet leaders.

[LH2NHI]

Ursa Major Technologies' engine finally takes its first flight!
The Talon-A1 hypersonic vehicle equipped with a Hadley engine was air-launched from Storatolaunch's ROC and successfully completed a high-speed flight test approaching Mach5.

Ursa Major only had low-performance customers for its high-performance engine, but I hope it will be used effectively in the future.
＝Summary of past business partners.＝
StoratoLaunch Talon-A(←First flight!!)

Generation Orbit/AFRL X-60A (not flown)
ABL space RS-1 (in-house production switching)
Astra Rocket4 (cash flow crisis)
C6 Launch (…?)
Aevum(…?)
Phantom Space(…?)
Vector Launch (after restarting) (…?)

https://twitter.com/Stratolaunch/status/1766612059951624449?s=20

[sdsds]

[...] what's stopping the old boys from just ordering up a load of Stratasys printers and doing the exact same thing?

Possibly capital requirements or workforce training. Why buy the tools when you can purchase the service?

[XRZ.YZ]

Is Hadley the first kerosene staged combustion engine build in US that powers a flight (although not a rocket)

[JEF_300]

Is Hadley the first kerosene staged combustion engine build in US that powers a flight (although not a rocket)

That... might be true? I can't think of another one. I guess the only real competition would be the (incredibly poorly named) Launcher Space, and their (equally poorly named) E2 engine definitely has not flown yet.

[catdlr]

https://twitter.com/ursamajortech/status/1767281049745150212

.
@ursamajortech's Hadley engine, a purpose-built engine designed to satisfy America's commercial & national security space needs, flew for the first time powering @Stratolaunch's Talon-A testbed. The test reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5. https://brnw.ch/21wHMqS

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Premieres in about 40.5 hours: