As demand for modern munitions reaches record highs amidst global conflicts, the United States’ supply chain for solid rocket motors (SRMs) is faltering, revealing critical vulnerabilities. A small Orlando-based business, Helicon Chemical Company, striving to become the second supplier for HTPB-45M—a binding component essential to most solid rocket motors—is facing bureaucratic and financial hurdles that threaten not only its existence but also national security.
Helicon’s Halt: Broken Promises and Looming Layoffs
Helicon’s plans to ramp up production in West Virginia were abruptly halted by „budgetary turmoil” at the Pentagon, which slammed the brakes on a promised and much-needed $15 million contract. The situation is aggravated by the ongoing lapse in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, funds from which make up about one-third of Helicon’s budget. According to CEO Jack Sarnicki, a potential second government shutdown, anticipated for January 30, could have disastrous consequences.
“Everything has come to a screeching halt,” Sarnicki said. “If we don’t get under contract [for the West Virginia facility], and another government shutdown occurs, we could have real issues with my company. We would probably have to think about laying off people.”
Soaring Demand, Fragile Supply: Why America’s Missiles Are At Risk
Demand for munitions like the Army’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) and the Navy’s Standard Missile family has skyrocketed in recent years, exponentially increasing the need for the solid rocket motors that power them. This surge has prompted new entrants into the market and spurred rapid expansion by traditional mainstays. However, this growth has not been uniformly replicated across the fragile SRM supply chain, raising serious questions about whether the sector has the scale to meet demand.
“We don’t really need a third solid rocket motor provider. What I’ve been saying to everyone is they’ll just go to the same supply chain,” said L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik in September. “We need more companies that make nozzles. We need more companies that make igniters. We need more companies that make cases. A third or a fourth solid rocket motor provider, they’re going to call the same people that we already have locked up, for our supply chain, and they’ll just have to get to the back of the line.”
The Pentagon’s Imperative: Needed Investment, Misdirected Focus?
According to Tara Murphy Dougherty, CEO of defense software firm Govini, what is truly needed is more aggressive input, in both dollars and attention, from the Pentagon.
“The Department leadership has a real opportunity right now, because as the reconciliation money becomes available, they’re about to spend upwards of $10 billion on additional munitions,” she said. However, “as of right now, they’re going to do things the exact same way and somehow expect different results from a supply chain management perspective.”
The ‘Ripple Effect’ Problem: When a Single Supplier Fails
Between 1995 and 2017, the U.S. SRM industrial base shrank from six companies to just two providers: Orbital ATK (acquired by Northrop Grumman) and Aerojet Rocketdyne (acquired by L3Harris). A third company, Norwegian-based Nammo, produces solid rocket motors for certain U.S.-made weaponry but operates from Norway. Over the last four years, several firms have announced plans to enter the SRM market, hoping to tap into what appears on paper to be a wealth of DoD funding.
The problem is that as the SRM primes shrunk over time, so did the sub-tier supply chain, with many materials and components available only from one or two companies, or with long lead times. Any impact to these companies could cause „ripple effects” throughout the entire SRM production line. Critical chokepoints include ignition safety devices, nozzles, cases, and insulation. A major concern lies in the supply chain for energetics—the materials and chemicals that cause the propulsive reaction needed by SRMs.
In 2025, Nammo officials discovered that a chemical company producing an ingredient for propellant used in one of its solid rocket motors was going out of business, with no alternative supplier. “It’s caused kind of a ripple effect of, what do we do?” said Andy Davis, Nammo’s vice president of engineering and strategy. He warned that smaller manufacturers of specialty chemicals can quietly go out of business without their defense clients realizing until it’s too late, triggering a long and expensive process to requalify a new vendor.
Explosive Ingredients: Critical Dependence on Single Points of Failure
According to Govini, energetic parts and propellants can take up to a year to source. Meanwhile, American Pacific Corporation (AMPAC) is the only U.S.-based source of ammonium perchlorate—a key ingredient for solid rocket motor propellant—creating a „single point of failure” in the missile supply chain.
“Beyond AMPAC, the DoD lacks a deeper understanding of the shared industrial base critical for solid rocket motor production,” Govini states. “A high degree of interconnectedness and shared sub-tier supply base suggests that expanding production of solid rocket motors will be difficult without increasing the number of suppliers for key parts and material.”
Both domestic SRM suppliers—Northrop and L3Harris—”are tethered to a handful of shared suppliers for essential components,” and a disruption of any of those companies „would simultaneously cripple the production capacity of the entire solid rocket motor enterprise.”
Tragedy as a Wake-Up Call: Lessons from Industrial Catastrophes
One such catastrophe sadly occurred in October, when an explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems’s facility in Tennessee killed 16 people and leveled one building. This company was a source of energetics for the solid rocket motor industry and a sub-tier supplier to Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop, and Nammo. The incident should be a „wake up call” for the Pentagon to play a more proactive role in managing its supply chain and ensuring secondary, or even tertiary, suppliers for critical materials.
Industry Innovates: Startups and Vertical Integration Combat Scarcity
Chemicals aren’t the only risk area, with Govini noting that certain nozzles require seven to ten months of lead time. Startups and new entrants into the SRM space are taking unusual steps. Bret Perry, Anduril’s head of growth for rocket motor systems, acknowledges that “if all of these existing suppliers and the new suppliers go to the same sub tiers, you’re going to run into more bottlenecks and constraints.” Anduril, for example, taught one of its nozzle suppliers how to make motor cases, leveraging existing machinery.
Ursa Major is taking a slightly different approach, banking on vertical integration. “We’re actually buying powder and sintering it ourselves,” said Bill Murray, the company’s vice president. They intend to use fewer propellant ingredients across their SRM family and seek out new, more resilient, and automated synthetic chemical suppliers.
Primes Step Up: Major Contractors Invest in Supply Chain Resilience
Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, collaborating to establish GD as a rocket motor manufacturer for Lockheed’s GMLRS munition, view constraints in nozzles and insulators as potential roadblocks. Lockheed plans to stand up its own nozzle production capability.
Current SRM primes are also making their own supply chain investments. L3Harris has invested over $250 million in long-lead material advanced funding and supported suppliers in modernizing and expanding their workforce, resulting, for example, in a 1,000 percent increase in monthly motor case output at one supplier. Northrop Grumman has invested “more than $1 billion” across its SRM facilities and plans to double its rocket motor output over the next four years, also supporting efforts to diversify the supply chain.
Funding vs. Reality: Small Businesses Face Bureaucratic Hurdles
Both Congress and the Defense Department have been bullish on financial efforts meant to solidify and diversify the SRM supply chain, allocating considerable sums. However, for Jack Sarnicki of Helicon Chemical, still awaiting the funding needed to ramp up production, the DoD’s stated intent to move faster and correct SRM supply base vulnerabilities has not matched the reality.
“We’re a small company way down the food chain, and we’re just trying to pay our bills and keep the thing moving forward,” Sarnicki said. “Way up on top, things may be going better. You’ll read the articles that Raytheon gets a huge contract [for weapons], or Northrop gets it. Everything seems great. But you have to be able to produce it.”
The Long Game: Produce or Be Vulnerable?
Disinformation is not the only threat to national security. Dependence on a fragile and insufficiently diversified supply chain for critical military components puts the United States in a vulnerable position. The question is not merely how many SRM producers exist, but rather whether America can effectively produce what it needs, on time and in sufficient quantity, to sustain its defense.
