EXCLUSIVE: Former Maxar Technologies CEO tapped as rocket startup head

WASHINGTON — Former Maxar Technologies CEO Dan Jablonsky will take over on Monday as the new chief executive of Ursa Major Technologies, as the Colorado-based defense and space startup looks to scale its rocket-making business.

Since its formation in 2015, Ursa Major has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funds as well as contracts with the Defense Department to prototype critically-needed technologies, like 3D-printed solid rocket motors and hypersonic propulsion systems.

But as the company sets its sights on full-scale production, a change in leadership was in order, its founder and current CEO Joe Laurienti said in an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense.

“This next phase of business is going to require a level of experience that Dan could help bring to the table. So it was just a great opportunity, very lucky timing and very lucky circumstance,” he said.

During his tenure at Maxar, Jablonsky developed a track record for “bringing a lot of first-of-its-kind solutions” to its customers, “not just bringing

to market … but developing that trust, developing that scale that Ursa Major is going to need,” Laurienti said.

Jablonsky told Breaking Defense his goal is to help establish Ursa Major “as one of America’s great companies.”

“There’s a really nice tailwind on the company to ramp it to its next growth phase,” he said.

Some of that growth appears to be imminent. This week, the company was awarded its third biggest contract, said Laurienti, who declined to comment further. Other near term opportunities include the demand for solid rocket motors — which cannot be fulfilled by the two current vendors — as well as anticipated demand for the company’s Hadley rocket engine, both he and Jablonsky said.

RELATED: Ursa Major takes aim at DoD solid rocket motor market

Yet another untapped opportunity for the company is the international market. Although both executives said they expect the Pentagon’s embrace of defense startups to continue and for capability gaps in rocket motors to spur prolonged investment, international sales could provide a hedge to constrained US defense and space spending.

“That provides an awful lot of growth, opportunity and resiliency to the business, even in the midst of US government up and down cycles in budgeting,” Jablonksy said.

Jablonsky became president and CEO of Maxar Technologies in 2019 after it acquired space imagery provider DigitalGlobe, where he had served as president since 2017. During a five-year stint at DigitalGlobe, he ran the company’s international defense and intelligence unit and served as the company’s general counsel.

Jablonsky departed Maxar after the company was purchased by private equity firm Advent International and split into two businesses, Maxar Intelligence and Maxar Space Systems, last year.

Although Jablonsky and Laurienti had been each other’s orbits for years as chief executives of two Colorado-based space businesses, discussions about a possible executive position for Jablonsky began about nine months ago. After Jablonsky visited Ursa Major’s production facilities early this year, those talks shifted into discussions about a potential leadership transition, both executives said.

Laurienti will stay on in the short term to hand off responsibilities and relationships with key stakeholders during the transition, he said.

Concern about the US rocket engine industrial base has exploded in the past decade, first due to a 2014 law that prohibited the use of Russian rocket engines for defense applications, and then in recent years as investment in hypersonic weapons soared and as sustained demand for munitions due to the war in Ukraine created a solid rocket motor shortfall.

Ursa Major has sought to meet those needs. Last year, the Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Ursa Major a contract for work on its its liquid-propelled Draper engine, which has 4,000 pounds of thrust and can be used on hypersonics, as well as to further develop the 200,000-pound thrust Arroway engine for space launch. In April, the Navy tasked Ursa Major with developing and testing a prototype solid rocket motor for its Standard Missile arsenal.