ABQ firm’s rocket engine technology could make space more accessible

After nearly six years of closed-door research and development, Albuquerque-based X-Bow Systems officially launched ground-breaking rocket engine technology this year that could shake up the space launch industry.

X-bow (pronounced “crossbow”), founded in early 2016, broke out of stealth mode last April and unveiled a family of newly developed ground and orbital launch vehicles, with a new, revolutionary and robust manufacturing process- state propellant for rocket engines. That additive-manufacturing process could represent the biggest technological leap in solid-fuel rocket-engines in 50 years, allowing for significant reductions in costs for vehicle launches and higher flight frequencies.

“Our robust rocket engine manufacturing process is a challenge for the aerospace industry,” Jason Hundley, X-Bow’s founder and CEO, told the Journal. “This is a new, patent-pending ‘energetics’ technology.”

X-Bow’s proprietary process of “additive solid propellant manufacturing,” or AMSP, is the first time a company has successfully applied 3D printing to solid-state fuel for rocket engines. Other manufacturers use 3D printing for the engines themselves, but only a few commercial companies currently produce solid-state rocket-motor fuel, and they use a decades-long and time-consuming process, often six to eight weeks before customers, Hundley said.

The traditional fuel production process begins with the slow mixing of chemicals, which takes up to five days. After that, the mixture is poured into a huge steel melting pit, where the ingredients are slowly hardened for 10-15 days.

Then, when the solid-state fuel is ready to be removed, it goes into advanced post-processing. And only after that, the fuel is sent to the final manufacturing stage, where the fuel itself is mixed into the rocket engine assembly process.

In contrast, X-Bow’s additive manufacturing compresses the entire mixing and curing process into a three-day process. The company also developed proprietary rocket engines designed to be mixed with fuel using propellant cartridges in a simple and easy-to-create process.

“It’s a cartridge-based approach,” Handley said. “We put the propellant at the bottom of the rocket engine and we inject it through the nozzle on the back.”

The overall, end result is a much simpler, more efficient process that greatly reduces the manufacturing footprint, greatly speeds up the timeline, and lowers the costs of manufacturing both the solid-state propellant and the fully assembled rocket motors themselves.

“We can produce 700 pounds of grain (propellant) in four hours to cure for one to two days before it’s released out of the system,” Hundley said. “That means we can make 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of powerhouses in a week.”

When X-Bow was first launched six years ago, it didn’t set out to create new propellant technology. Instead, Hundley and veteran aerospace industry colleagues founded the company, X-Bow, to first partner with Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base to build a new family of launch vehicles.

That new vehicle, dubbed the “Bolt Rocket,” is designed for a flexible construction to accommodate different sizes and ground and orbital launches, with similar changes in rocker-motor configuration based on the mission, Hundley said.

“We can go from entry-level to high-end vehicles,” Hundley said. “It is a family of vehicles with a common front-end chassis and rocket engine base.”

The X-Bow is initially expected to use commercial suppliers for solid-state rocket-motor propulsion. But the procurement process proved too slow and costly, so the company decided to develop its own fuel production technology.

And that, along with the Bolt rocket and proprietary rocket engine design, greatly expanded the X-Bow’s commercial opportunities beyond its initial focus on launch services for government and private sector customers. Space payload flights for customers remain central to X-Bow’s commercial offerings, but their proprietary solid-state rocket engines can be adapted for other uses, including missiles, emerging hypersonic technology.

“We do space launchers as a service, but we can modify the factory design to provide rocket engines for other applications,” Hundley said. “For example, every tactical missile has a solid rocket motor.”

It can also be a commercial supplier of rocket-engine propellants, customizing with customers the specific fuel blends required for rocket-engine designs. And, with its high-speed project-manufacturing process — and a wide variety of mission-specific rocket and engine designs — the company can deliver the fastest project times in the aerospace industry.

“We have developed a ‘just-in-time’ capability for subsurface and orbital systems,” Handley said.

Thanks to its proven technology, the company has developed a strong customer base in both the government and commercial sectors, despite coming out of obscurity. In the year By 2021, it’s expected to generate about $7 million in revenue, and it’s got projects worth between $15 million and $20 million this year.

It also closed on $27 million in private equity in April with institutional and corporate venture funds, including Lockheed Martin Ventures.

The company was originally based in Huntsville, Alabama, although it has maintained a significant presence in New Mexico since its inception.

In 2019, however, X-Bow moved its corporate headquarters and all of its central operations to Albuquerque. It now leases a 5,000-square-foot facility in Uptown and has established a manufacturing research and development complex in Socorro as the New Mexico Energy Materials Research and Testing Center for Minerals and Technology.

It currently employs about 70 people, more than half of them in New Mexico, and is expected to grow to 100 this year, depending on public and commercial contracts that are now being negotiated.

And here he maintains a close relationship with many local businesses and public bodies. For example, it contracts directly with two engineering firms in New Mexico to provide products and services.

“We’ve had a lot of New Mexico businesses with our operations and we intend to have them participate in future missions,” Handley said.

In fact, Central New Mexico Community College has an interest in X-Bow through CNM Ingenuity, which manages all of CNM’s commercial efforts. Ingenuity Venture Fund and ABQid Business Accelerator Investment Fund — also managed by CNM Ingenuity — jointly contributed a $2.4 million seed round investment in X-Bow three years ago, said TJ Cook, who manages both funds.

“The X-Bow has really created a paradigm shift in the world of propulsion,” Cook told the Journal. “The company has developed platform technology not only for rocket launchers but also for many other applications. It now has many businesses to excel in the market.”