Anduril wins solid rocket motor test, development contract for Navy’s SM-6

WASHINGTON — Anduril Industries announced today it received a $19 million contract to “design, build and test second stage rocket motors” for use in the Navy’s Standard Missile-6, a key win for the company’s relatively new efforts in the market.

The contract is Anduril’s first with the Pentagon for rocket motors and gives the company a foot in the door with one of the Navy’s favored interceptors used to counter air, surface and hypersonic missile threats. A Navy spokesman declined to comment when asked if similar contracts were awarded.

“As threats from near-peer and non-state adversaries become increasingly advanced and widespread, it is imperative that we expand the supply base for solid rocket motors to meet and deter the threat,” said Neil Thurgood, a senior vice president at Anduril and retired Army three-star general.

Palmer Luckey, Anduril’s founder, told Breaking Defense in an interview last August his company is “going after everything that’s on the [Defense Department’s] list. All the way from Javelin-class all the way up to intermediate range missiles.”

His remarks came just weeks after his company announced the acquisition of Adranos, a manufacturer of solid rocket motors, in June 2023.

On Monday, Anduril announced it was investing $75 million in its solid rocket motor production facility in McHenry, Miss.

The company said in a statement the investment will “increase the propellant mixing and solid rocket motor annual production capacity from 600 to more than 6,000 tactical-scale solid rocket motors, to support growing demand from customers and establish itself as America’s newest independent merchant supplier of rocket motors.”

The new development and testing for the SM-6 motors will occur both at Anduril’s office in Huntsville, Ala., as well as the facilities in McHenry.

Separately, Anduril announced this week it would open a large scale production facility for autonomous underwater vehicles in Rhode Island. The facility is anticipated to increase the company’s production of 200 AUVs per year and create more than 100 jobs over the next five years, according to the company.

Anduril produces the Dive-LD family of AUVs which is involved in a Defense Innovation Unit prototyping effort for large unmanned undersea vehicles.