— This story was updated Thursday with additional contract details from X-Bow CEO Jason Hundley.
X-Bow Systems Inc. said Tuesday the U.S. Navy awarded it a pair of rocket development contracts, following a few other big-dollar government contracts awarded to the Albuquerque company over the past year.
Under the twin contracts, X-Bow, an advanced rocket technology company, will work on a specific type of rocket booster and a specific type of solid rocket motor — the Mk 72 booster and the Mk 104 dual-thrust solid rocket motor, respectively.
The Albuquerque company will develop new designs for the booster and the solid rocket motor in collaboration with the Navy's Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems 3.0, the Naval Air Warfare Center's Weapons Division at China Lake, the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head and John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, according to a Tuesday news release.
The two contract efforts are aimed at developing X-Bow as an additional rocket motor supplier for the U.S. Navy's standard missiles, with production expected to start in the next several months. The Albuquerque company is the only supplier to be awarded contracts for both the Mk 72 and the Mk 104, the release notes.
X-Bow develops advanced manufacturing systems for solid rocket motors and launch vehicle energetics, and it designs and builds modular solid rocket motors and small launch vehicles.
"X-Bow Systems is proud to be a partner in addressing the nation's critical need for more solid rocket motors," its CEO Jason Hundley said in a statement. "We have assembled a nationwide, experienced and talented team that is revolutionizing the approach to conventional manufacturing: enabling performance, flexibility, scaling, affordability, and reliability."
Hundley said the funding amount for the two contracts are around $3.4 million for the Mk 104 contract and $4.1 million for the Mk 72 contract. Both have performance periods of between nine to 18 months, although the company is awaiting confirmation on readjusted contract schedules.
The awards are "continued validation" for X-Bow's work as an industrial base supplier, he added, and he said the company has just under one dozen ongoing rocket motor development programs, split between internal and external funding sources.
X-Bow is headquartered at 6200 Uptown Blvd. NE, Suite 200, in Albuquerque, and it operates a research and development facility in Socorro in collaboration with the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
In February 2023, the company announced plans to stand up a $25 million development and manufacturing facility near Austin, Texas, which it said at the time could scale to employ hundreds over the next few years.
Tuesday's contract news follows two other recent contract wins for X-Bow. The company received a $64 million "qualification contract" from the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy in October and, in March, landed an $18 million follow-on contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.
Hundley told Business First shortly after X-Bow's March contract news the company is planning a large fundraise this year, with a target of around $75 million. That money would allow X-Bow to accelerate its business plans and growth "into a higher gear," Hundley said in March.
