The Navy can't build missiles fast enough. It just bet $137 million on a startup to fix that. Guy D. McCardle, SOFREP Managing Editor and former Army medical operations officer, covers defense and military affairs. The Navy is quietly building its way out of dependence on one missile family and two motor makers, and a $137 million bet on a Colorado startup shows exactly how it plans to climb out. Two development contracts for CAAM and NMM motors reveal a broader Navy effort to replace the Standard Missile family through open competition while widening a brittle propulsion base. The Navy is building its way out of dependence on the Standard Missile family and two dominant motor makers, and its $137 million award to Ursa Major, announced Oct. 5, shows how. With the Naval Modular Missile, the service is putting its future missile family on a government-owned architecture that lets vendors compete for components or the entire weapon. The Colorado company received $91 million to develop a motor for the Compact Air-to-Air Missile and $46 million for the Quad-Pack Medium-Range variant of the Naval Modular Missile. The contracts fund development and qualification rather than production motors. More missiles in the same space. The Compact Air-to-Air Missile, or CAAM, is a future short-range weapon designed for internal carriage aboard stealth fighters such as the F-35 and future uncrewed aircraft, and Ursa Major is developing its seven-inch motor with Highly Loaded Grain propellant to pack greater performance into a restricted volume. The company aims for a low unit cost and is using the same manufacturing methods it plans to use in full-rate production. The operational value comes from magazine depth. Internal carriage preserves an aircraft's low-observable profile, but bay dimensions limit how many weapons it can carry. A compact missile gives the pilot more engagement opportunities before becoming an expensive airborne spectator. The Navy has not disclosed how many CAAMs would fit inside an aircraft. The ten-inch NMM motor addresses the same problem aboard ships. Four Quad-Pack Medium-Range interceptors could fit inside one Mk 41 Vertical Launching System cell, where a Standard Missile occupies the entire cell today. The move beyond Standard Missile. The Navy's fiscal 2027 budget request describes NMM as a competitive follow-on to the Standard Missile family and indicates that NMM types could eventually replace the existing inventory. The planned family uses a common Terminal Stage Interceptor with different booster arrangements. Those configurations include a single-cell long-range hypersonic weapon, a dual-packed extended-range version, the quad-packed medium-range interceptor, and a submarine-launched variant for Virginia Payload Module tubes. The government-owned architecture, developed with the Air Force, would allow companies to compete on seekers, propulsion, guidance, datalinks, or complete missiles. The Navy could replace a weak supplier or install better technology without surrendering permanent control of the weapon to one prime contractor. My read is that the Navy wants competition built into the missile before the first production contract hardens the supply chain around another incumbent. The August solicitation called for a ten-inch interceptor and an all-up-round demonstration in fiscal 2029. The Navy expects the family to reach the fleet in the early 2030s. That leaves Congress and the budget process plenty of time to commit their usual crimes, and the Standard Missile family carries the load in the meantime. Washington opens the munitions spigot. The Pentagon requested $95 billion for missiles in fiscal 2027, up from roughly $36 billion in fiscal 2026. A jump that large will mean little if the industrial base cannot expand fast enough to turn that money into motors. A June 2026 Center for Strategic and International Studies report tied the urgency to missile expenditures during Operation Epic Fury. It identified unstable demand cycles and complex supply chains as production obstacles. It also found that government and industry incentives frequently pull in different directions. RTX, Ursa Major, and X-Bow helped fund the report. A single year's budget request will not persuade a motor maker to hire a workforce and pour concrete for an energetics plant that may take years to qualify. Industry needs contracts it can see beyond the next budget fight. A third company does not fix every chokepoint. The Government Accountability Office found in 2017 that the domestic solid rocket motor industry had contracted from six manufacturers in 1995 to two. One manufacturer estimated that the supporting supplier base had fallen from roughly 5,000 companies to 1,000. Those two incumbents are Northrop Grumman and L3Harris, which acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023. Govini traced both incumbents to the same short list of sub-tier suppliers, including AMPAC, the ammonium perchlorate producer. A third final assembler does not remove a bottleneck shared by every motor maker. Ursa Major developed a proprietary propellant during a $25 million cost-share program with the Navy and the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, completed in February. The company built and static-fired a ten-inch Highly Loaded Grain motor while working with the Navy's China Lake and Indian Head facilities. The public record does not show whether that propellant reduces dependence on the shared chemical suppliers Govini identified. That answer will decide whether Ursa Major gives the Navy an independent supply path or one more assembly line drawing on the same chemicals. The company still has to scale. Ursa Major was founded in 2015. It unveiled its Lynx production system in November 2023, though its own investor presentation dates the start of solid rocket motor development to 2024. The company now has more than 360 employees and six facilities. It says Lynx can manufacture motors from two to 22 inches on an adaptable line and currently produces hundreds of motors annually. The investor presentation says Ursa Major has limited revenue and has not reached profitability. It also says Lynx must grow from hundreds of motors per year to thousands. Static fires show design performance, while qualification must prove consistent manufacturing and safe storage under the conditions imposed by aircraft and warships. Ursa Major agreed in August to merge with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. III, a special-purpose acquisition company. The proposed combination implies a $1.6 billion pre-money valuation and a $2.3 billion post-transaction valuation, with at least $350 million in private investment commitments. Ursa Major plans to use some of the proceeds to expand production, including conversion of its Galeton, Colorado test site into a large-scale manufacturing campus. Rule 425 filings are standard practice during a SPAC merger. This one put a Navy contract to work as deal marketing, aimed at a market that develops hives whenever quarterly growth slows. What comes next. Planners should watch qualification testing and whether Ursa Major can repeat the same motor at production rates. The next question is whether the Navy develops another motor source for either program. Ursa Major's parallel work on the existing Mk 104 motor could provide part of the bridge. The Navy awarded the company $10 million in July to move that design through critical design review and static fire, after giving prototype contracts to Ursa Major, X-Bow, and incumbent Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2024. That existing-missile work will show whether a new supplier can cross from prototype into qualification fast enough to cover the years before NMM reaches the fleet. Sources. Aviation Week. "Ursa Major Wins U.S. Navy Air-to-Air, Surface-To-Air Contracts." Aviation Week Network, October 2026. https://aviationweek.com/defense/missile-defense-weapons/ursa-major-wins-Loadout Room-navy-air-air-surface-air-contracts. Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. III. Form 425, "Ursa Major Lands $137M to Develop Solid Rocket Motors for Navy Missiles." Filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, October 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0002128045/000121390026108209/ea0308046-425_bleichroeder3.htm. Breaking Defense. "With the Boom for Solid Rocket Motors for Missiles, a Perilous Crunch in the Supply Chain." Breaking Defense, January 2026. https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/with-the-boom-for-solid-rocket-motors-for-missiles-a-perilous-crunch-in-the-supply-chain/. Colorado Politics. "Colorado's Ursa Major to Go Public in $2.3B Deal as Demand for Missiles Skyrockets." Colorado Politics, August 25, 2026. https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2026/08/25/colorados-ursa-major-to-go-public-in-2-3b-deal-as-demand-for-missiles-skyrockets/. Naval Technology. "US Navy Awards Ursa Major $137m for Solid Rocket Motors." Naval Technology, October 2026. https://www.naval-technology.com/?p=122559. Rumbaugh, Wes, and Tom Karako. Solid Rocket Motors for Missile Defense: Challenges and Opportunities for Expanding the Industrial Base. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2026. https://www.csis.org/analysis/solid-rocket-motors-missile-defense-challenges-and-opportunities-expanding-industrial-base. The War Zone. "Tiny Air-to-Air Missile in Development for Stealthy U.S. Navy Combat Aircraft." The War Zone, August 2026. https://www.twz.com/air/tiny-air-to-air-missile-in-development-for-stealthy-u-s-navy-combat-aircraft. The War Zone. "U.S. Navy Is Seeking a Submarine-Launched Anti-Air Missile." The War Zone, 2026. https://www.twz.com/sea/u-s-navy-is-seeking-a-submarine-launched-anti-air-missile. U.S. Government Accountability Office. Solid Rocket Motors: DOD and Industry Are Addressing Challenges to Minimize Supply Concerns. GAO-18-45. Washington, DC: GAO, October 26, 2017. https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-45.

Ursa Major appoints Jason Meredith as President. Oct 13, 2026, 12:00 ET BERTHOUD, Colo., Oct. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Ursa Major today announced the promotion of Jason Meredith to President of Ursa Major. In his new role, Meredith will lead business execution across Ursa Major with responsibility for the company's full profit and loss. "Jason has the experience and leadership to bring this next phase of Ursa Major to life," said Chris Spagnoletti, CEO of Ursa Major. "He understands our technology, our customers and what it takes to execute at scale. As President, he will bring that experience across the entire business and help ensure we continue delivering for our customers as Ursa Major grows." Meredith most recently served as President of Solid Missile Systems, where he led program execution and engineering across Ursa Major's growing solid rocket motor portfolio. His promotion comes as Ursa Major continues to scale production across its long-range and hypersonics missiles, solid rocket motors, and space mobility businesses and prepares to become a publicly traded company. "I'm excited to take on this role at an important point in Ursa Major's growth," said Meredith. "We have strong technology, growing demand and a manufacturing approach built to scale. My focus will be on bringing those pieces together across the business so we can move faster, increase production and deliver the capabilities our warfighters need to meet the mission." Meredith brings more than two decades of aerospace, defense and solid propulsion experience, with senior engineering, program and business leadership roles at ATK, Orbital ATK, Northrop Grumman, and Pratt & Whitney. He joined Ursa Major in 2026 to lead its Solid Missile Systems business and the continued expansion of the company's solid rocket motor capabilities. About Ursa Major Ursa Major is an advanced weapons and space systems company delivering flight-proven capabilities for hypersonics, solid rocket motors, and space mobility. Headquartered in Berthoud, Colorado, with additive manufacturing operations in Youngstown, Ohio, Ursa Major leverages advanced production techniques and flexible architectures to build systems for all domains: land, air, sea, and space. The company is revitalizing the defense industrial base for the U.S. and its allies, flying faster to accelerate delivery of critical capabilities where speed and adaptability matter most. For more information, visit www.ursamajor.com. SOURCE Ursa Major