Aerojet digging ‘out of this hole’ as it clears rocket backlog, president says

When L3Harris Technologies bought Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion last year, the rocket-motor-builder was thousands of motors behind schedule. Now, just over a year into the acquisition, Aerojet says it’s getting back on track. 

The company has previously struggled to deliver solid rocket motors for key weapons, frustrating customers like Lockheed Martin and RTX. Although the company reported progress in delivery rates over the past year, RTX officials said this summer that it’s still a “mixed bag” when getting on-time deliveries. 

“I don't blame the primes for still kind of being in that ‘show me’ mode, where they're waiting for us to absolutely demonstrate consistently that we're delivering,” Ross Niebergall, president of Aerojet Rocketdyne, said in an interview. 

The company has made strides to improve delivery times, Niebergall said. Last year, Aerojet was “thousands of motors behind contract,” across 15 to 20 programs, he said. But they’ve cut that in half, and project a 60-percent reduction by the end of the year. 

“On several of those programs that we call ‘red,’ the ones that we were behind on, we've actually now achieved multiple months of record deliveries on these programs. So I think we're in a pretty good clip to dig ourselves out of this hole. Obviously, still more work to do, but I think we're on the right track,” he said. 

The challenges facing Aerojet’s “red programs” mainly come down to getting components from sub-tier suppliers, like cases, nozzles, igniters, and valves, Niebergall said. They’ve found single points of failure in the supply chain, he said, so the company has invested over $25 million into smaller companies to boost production. 

Northrop Grumman, the other main U.S. supplier of solid rocket motors, uses the same sub-tier supplier for many products so “we're all tapping into that supply chain to a great extent,” Niebergall said. 

Northrop and Aerojet have been the only two companies producing rocket motors in the U.S., but with new entrants breaking into the business, like Ursa Major and X-Bow Systems, and prime contractors hunting for their own supply of SRMs, like the recent teaming agreement between Lockheed and General Dynamics, the competition field may expand in the coming years. 

Niebergall said Aerojet is bracing for stronger competition by “making sure that we get back on track” and meet its commitments to customers. But he also said it will be a while before any of these new companies will rival his own.

“Overall, I think that we have to recognize that creating one or two solid rocket motors or a low production rate may not be all that challenging, but as you get into very large production, this doesn't happen overnight, and it's going to take a while and ultimately, it's a fairly significant investment as well,” he said.  

Demand for solid rocket motors has skyrocketed over the past two years as wars have depleted many countries’ weapons stockpiles. Now that more companies are jumping into the market, it remains to be seen whether demand will be sufficient for the companies to thrive.

“Ultimately, the strong will be the ones who survive and right now, I'm still in a wait-and-see mode on that, quite honestly. There's been a lot of attention to the industry. A lot of new entrants have jumped into it. We'll just have to see how demand plays out. Supplementals, as a result of Ukraine and Israel, have certainly had a short-term impact on the industry. But how does this settle out in the long term, as we continue to pivot to peer threats?” Niebergall said. 

Last year, Aerojet received $216 million from the Defense Department through the Defense Production Act to expand and modernize its facilities in Arkansas, Alabama, and Virginia to increase the production of rocket motors for key weapons systems being sent to Ukraine, like the Javelin, Stinger, and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System. L3Harris has also increased internal investment in Aerojet by 40 percent.

With the funding, Aerojet will build additional facilities in Camden, Arkansas, and Orange County, Virginia. The applications for environmental approvals are “nearing completion,” officials said. 

The Huntsville, Alabama, location is focused on inert production—that is, cases, nozzles, and other parts that aren’t explosive. Aerojet recently leased an additional facility in Huntsville to triple its working space, Niebergall said. 

Aerojet doesn’t have a specific date for when all these new buildings will come online, he said, but added: “We're already ramping up production as a result of the [Defense Production Act] and I would say that that is going to continue, really, over the next year-plus, as we get completion of that project.”