Ursa Major Technologies

Joe Laurienti left engine work at SpaceX and Blue Origin in 2015 to start his own propulsion company in Colorado, on the theory that American missile and launch programs were short of engines rather than short of vehicles. Ursa Major now runs three lines of business from Berthoud, north of Denver, with additive manufacturing operations in Youngstown, Ohio and a large motor test and production site at Galeton, Colorado. Roughly 270 people worked there as of 2023. A $100 million Series E led by Eclipse closed in late 2025 alongside $50 million of debt, and the company broke ground on a dedicated solid rocket motor test and qualification site in September of that year.

The hypersonics line rests on two liquid engines. Hadley produces 5,000 pounds of thrust at sea level on liquid oxygen and kerosene, runs an oxygen rich staged combustion cycle and is about 80 percent additively manufactured, and it powered Stratolaunch Talon-A vehicles on the first sustained American flights past Mach 5 in decades. Draper is the tactical answer. It burns hydrogen peroxide and kerosene, propellants that sit in a magazine at room temperature, and it throttles and restarts in flight in a way no solid motor can. The Air Force Research Laboratory put $28.6 million behind it under the Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator program and the engine flew in January 2026. A month later the company unveiled HAVOC, its first complete round, pairing a solid booster with a Draper sustainer for medium range strike.

Solid motors are the second line and the larger market. Lynx is a manufacturing process rather than a motor, an additive-enabled production line the company says adapts from 2 inch to 22 inch diameters without retooling, and static fires have walked up through the 2.75, 5, 7, 10 and 13.5 inch classes. The Navy contracted for a Mk 104 motor for the Standard Missile family in 2024, and a separate manufacturing pathfinder run with the Navy and the Office of Strategic Capital closed out on a 10 inch motor. An extended range motor for the 2.75 inch APKWS guidance kit sits at the small end of the same line. Ripley at 50,000 pounds of thrust and Arroway at 200,000 pounds on liquid oxygen and methane stay in development for launch vehicle work.

Space systems is the third line. Ursa Major productized a hydrazine monopropellant architecture for satellites moving between low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit, covering attitude control and end of life thrusters, refuelable aluminum tanks with a hydrazine compatible diaphragm, and redundant propulsion controllers offered with radiation tolerant options. The pitch there is maneuver. Operators buying it want deorbit, refueling and space reconnaissance work rather than a fixed station in a fixed orbit. Launch customers over the years have included Stratolaunch, Phantom Space, Astra Space and the Canadian firm C6 Launch Systems, and the Pentagon Office of Strategic Capital added $12.5 million in 2024 to push the manufacturing processes further.