X-Bow to develop booster for future U.S. Navy interceptor

X-Bow Systems has won a prototype agreement worth up to $69.7 million to develop and qualify a solid rocket motor booster for a next-generation U.S. Navy weapon, and to tool a production line in Luling, Texas, that can build up to 500 motors a year, the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based company said on October 7.

The agreement, administered by U.S. Army Contracting Command at Rock Island Arsenal, covers a $50.4 million Phase 1 development effort lasting 12 months and a $19.3 million Phase 2 qualification option. The government obligated $50 million at award to fund Phase 1 in increments. X-Bow did not name the weapon the booster is intended for.

The company said the Navy program replaces single-purpose interceptors with a common design, including variants that fit more interceptors into each launch system. The U.S. Navy plans to field an initial capability in early fiscal 2031.

“To be the Arsenal of Freedom, we must first break the decades-old bottleneck in solid rocket motor production,” said Jason Hundley, founder and chief executive of X-Bow Systems. “This award is a clear signal the Pentagon is investing in advanced manufacturing to solve that problem, and we are ready to deliver the affordable, mass-producible propulsion our nation needs.”

Solid rocket motors are the propellant-filled engines that launch most U.S. missiles and interceptors. X-Bow makes them partly through additive manufacturing of the propellant, and it will run the program across its facilities in California, New Mexico and Texas, using a design approach it calls Modular Motor Architecture. The rate tooling for the Luling line is funded under the new agreement.

The award is the sixth new propulsion program X-Bow says it has been selected for in 2026, across the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army and the Missile Defense Agency. The company also says it recently completed its first major production contract, delivering more than 2,100 rocket motors.

In July, the Missile Defense Agency gave X-Bow an $11 million contract to develop a high-performance solid rocket motor, saying it wanted to widen an industrial base that relies on two primary manufacturers, Northrop Grumman and L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne. In 2024, X-Bow received prototype agreements to build the Mk 72 and Mk 104 motors used in the U.S. Navy’s Standard Missile family.

X-Bow’s Texas site has grown alongside those contracts. The company finished installing a full production version of its additive manufacturing system at Luling in November 2025, and in May 2026 it earned certification for full production operations there. The U.S. Air Force Test Center had awarded it a four-year, $191.3 million motor manufacturing contract in September 2025.

The 12-month Phase 1 effort covers booster development, with the government holding the option to fund qualification in Phase 2.