It doesn’t make 3D printers, provide additive manufacturing (AM) feedstock, present design software program, or print elements upon request from the final market. However none of this makes Ursa Main any much less “an AM firm,” in accordance with Chief Working Officer Nick Doucette:
“Additive is without doubt one of the core pillars of Ursa Main,” Doucette affirmed. “So in case you have a look at the corporate like a home, AM won’t be the one factor holding all the things collectively, however with out it, the roof would fall down. We view each product by way of the lens of additive.”
This unabashed embrace of AM is noteworthy for at the least two causes. For one factor, as was highlighted on the Additive Manufacturing Methods (AMS) convention in New York earlier this 12 months, many corporations within the area, at this level, view de-emphasizing their use of AM as a necessity with a view to appeal to curiosity from prospects and buyers. Years of overpromising and underdelivering by a big proportion of the AM business have left the addressable market cautious of shopping for what AM corporations are promoting.
Secondly, in flip, that context makes it all of the extra spectacular that Ursa Main is without doubt one of the most profitable manufacturing startups, AM-enabled or in any other case, within the U.S. proper now. That was definitely already the case going into 2025: the corporate has made a litany of bulletins within the final couple of months that, taken altogether, arguably make the second quarter of this 12 months essentially the most profitable one in Ursa Main’s decade-or-so historical past.
There was the announcement by the Pentagon in early Might that Ursa Main’s Draper engine had enabled the Stratolaunch Talon-A check car to succeed in hypersonic speeds in two separate check flights, one in December 2024 and the opposite in March 2025. This marked the U.S.’s first profitable hypersonic flights for the reason that Sixties, and the nation’s first ever hypersonic flight by a totally autonomous plane.
Solely days earlier than that revelation from the DoD, Ursa Main introduced that it had obtained a $28.6 million contract from the U.S. Air Pressure Analysis Laboratory’s (AFRL’s) Rocket Propulsion Division, which entails the event of the corporate’s Draper engine for a flight demonstration with a goal date of 2027. In the meantime, each of these bulletins got here simply shy of a month after Ursa Main reached an settlement to promote ten Hadley engines to Sirius Applied sciences, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Progressive House Provider (ISC).
“An particularly attention-grabbing facet to the Draper contract with the AFRL is that we’re going to be the prime integrator of the all-up spherical, as effectively,” famous the corporate’s Head of Advertising and marketing and Strategic Communications, Savanah Bray. An all-up spherical is a fully-assembled missile.
“For the primary time, it’s not simply the propulsion, it’s additionally the car integration. So I believe this will probably be our preliminary transfer in direction of branching out into different areas of the worth chain.”
That represents a vital milestone for Ursa Main’s long-term evolution, in accordance with Doucette:
“Since we solved the propulsion drawback, we’re getting extra questions from our prospects alongside the traces of, effectively, are you able to do extra?” he defined. “Propulsion is the core and most troublesome a part of many of the answer units which can be related to the verticals we serve. Whether or not it’s a rocket launch, or constructing a hypersonic missile, and many others., propulsion is often the reason for most failures, the supply of many of the spending, the rationale behind most timeline slips.
“When you can excellent propulsion, then, you possibly can definitely think about your self both going horizontally into different verticals that want propulsion, or going up and down inside a vertical, since you’ve discovered the toughest half. That’s form of what we’re strategizing behind the scenes, for the time being, is how horizontal and the way vertical we need to transfer, going ahead.”
Ursa Main’s propulsion system contains the mixing of key parts resembling tanks, thrusters, and avionics.
Alongside these traces, the corporate’s cope with Sirius Applied sciences is simply as important because the AFRL contract, by way of its demonstration that Ursa Main is choosing up its momentum within the business area business. Equally, in Q1 2025, the corporate introduced a $10-15 million, multi-year contract to construct and combine a propulsion system for a geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite tv for pc for an unnamed buyer.
That final deal highlights what I believe is without doubt one of the greatest sources of Ursa Main’s success: its deal with the best functions for the best prospects in the best industries. In a not too long ago printed report from 3DPrint.com’s sister firm, AM Analysis, we discovered that the marketplace for steel 3D printing for satellites is predicted to develop by over 4x by way of 2033. For my part, the truth that Ursa Main, which has been so ahead-of-the-curve on functions like stable rocket motors (SRMs), is bullish on AM for satellites, does a lot to bolster the optimistic projections for AM penetration of that exact market.
Above all, although, the corporate appears to owe its success to having the best personnel for the present international enterprise surroundings. Bray is an ideal instance of that: she’s a reasonably new rent, coming to the corporate by means of RTX and, earlier than that, the U.S. Air Pressure, the place she’s nonetheless a reservist. However her grasp of Ursa Main’s mission, its belongings, and its company tradition would lead one to imagine that she’s labored on the firm because it was based.
That got here by way of most strikingly once I requested her and Doucette if there’s a way during which the U.S.’s greatest challenges proper now aren’t exterior, however are in reality the challenges resultant from having to remodel the very system that we depend on to deal with exterior threats:
Doucette started, “I believe there’s definitely an inner aspect to the problem for U.S. nationwide safety that’s extra prevailing than it was up to now. We had been positively combating a selected kind of battle within the Center East for a very long time and simply tailored to form of sustaining that establishment. Then issues shifted and we realized, the panorama has modified, so we have now to alter. It’s been a little bit of a shock to the system, that the response mechanism from the commercial base isn’t as quick because it as soon as was.”
At that time, Bray jumped proper in together with her take:
“When you have a look at our previous a number of a long time of war-fighting, the trajectory is the emergence of counterinsurgency after which a transition out of counterinsurgency — however within the transition, we didn’t spend time and vitality on getting ready the commercial base for a pure risk,” she defined. “What you’re seeing with issues like Golden Dome and the buildup of hypersonic capabilities is that we’ve lastly began to internalize as soon as once more that we have now put together for the subsequent technology risk. We will’t simply take into consideration the current.”
Hiring folks like Bray, who perceive not simply the applied sciences at hand, however the purpose why these applied sciences are in such demand proper now, is what units Ursa Main aside. Its knack for creating the AM workforce helped the corporate land a $4 million grant from JobsOhio final 12 months, enabling Ursa Main to determine a 3D printing analysis hub within the Youngstown, Ohio space.
Stratolaunch’s Talon-A1 prepares for flight powered by Ursa Main’s Hadley engine.
Finally, the key behind the corporate’s attraction of the best expertise isn’t as sophisticated as you may suppose. Ursa Main is just uncompromising by way of what it seems for. Doucette credit the corporate’s capacity to seek out the best folks to its adherence to 3 core values — cohesion, conviction, and humility.
“About six or seven years in the past, Ursa made a really express resolution to anchor our whole progress trajectory on these three core values,” Doucette advised me. “As soon as we determined to do this, each facet of how we recruit, retain, and develop expertise was formed by that worth construction. In that context, in case you maintain utilizing the identical methodologies over an extended sufficient time, you primarily filter in precisely the kind of individual you need with a view to make your organization be what you need it to be sooner or later, and in the end to make your organization profitable.
“I believe different corporations do very effectively in hiring what they want, additionally. Ursa is simply very particular by way of how we decide our expertise, and the underlying worth construction we use as our reference level isn’t some flashy new factor — it’s extremely simplistic, however, on the identical time, it’s extraordinarily onerous to stay to.”
So, simply how massive has the corporate’s 2025 been, up to now? By my estimations, solely by way of what the corporate has publicly introduced, it has introduced in at the least $50 million in new contracts, in an surroundings during which manufacturing corporations aren’t very eager to decide to new enterprise.
“We will’t present the precise greenback determine,” Bray mentioned, “however your guess of $50 million — I’d say it’s a little bit larger than that.” She paused, then mentioned, “However yeah, it’s been a fairly good 12 months.”
And it’s not even midway over.
Pictures courtesy of Ursa Main
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