by Washington – Rocket Propulsion Startup Ursa Major accelerates the development and testing of his Draper Liquid Rocket Engine in collaboration with American defense agencies and military contractors. The goal: to position the engine for potential use in the next generation of rockets that would be part of the Iron Dome Missile Defense Initiative of the Trump administration.
Ursa Major last year completed soil tests of the Draperotor, developed with American Air Force Finance. These hot-fire tests took place in the facilities of the company in Berthoud, Colorado. Now the company is planning a flight test campaign to ripen the design and explore military applications, as well as commercial use in jerk caps and transport in space.
“We believe that Draper fills a gap that the United States have in his armament and goals,” said Christopher Spagnoletti, Chief Product Officer at Ursa Major.
Propulsion challenge
The urge from the Pentagon to a new rocket department shield emphasizes the need for better propulsion technology, because the iron dome calls for high-performance interception rocket that can work from the ground or from space, Spagnoletti noted.
Many current drive systems struggle to meet the size and weight requirements of tactical rockets while maintaining the necessary performance levels, he said. Draper is designed to offer an alternative to liquid propulsions that offers more flexibility compared to traditional fixed rocket engines and air-fading scramjets.
“Draper has the shape factor of a solid rocket engine,” said Spagnoletti Spacenews.
The non-cryogenic kerosene peroxide fuel combination of the engine would offer a simplified storage solution compared to engines that use liquid oxygen. Because these floating gases remain liquid at room temperature, he explained, they eliminate the need for complex cooling systems, which makes storage possible without special equipment possible and makes it possible to use immediately when needed.
Missile Defense Program
The Iron Dome initiative of the Pentagon proposes the use of “proliferated space-based interceptors that are capable of boost phase interception.” This means that a large number of these weapons in a job to be used to intercept and destroy incoming rockets during their boost phase, or the first phase of the flight of a rocket when the engines still burn.
Spagnoletti said that the 4000-pound Dreper Draper engine would be suitable for space-based interceptors, because it was designed for both atmospheric and in-space drive.
The current rocketing weather systems are mainly dependent on solid rocket engines for storage efficiency and rapid deployment. Hypersonic weapons often use scramjets, which take atmospheric oxygen as an oxidiate. In the meantime, Draper is “agnostic to the environment,” he added.
Development and scale
A report from Congressional Budget Office from 2023 emphasized the propulsion challenges in the American hypersonic rocket development, and noted that maintaining motor performance during the flight is an important obstacle. The report compared the challenge to “held a competition in a hurricane enlightened.”
Spagnoletti said that Ursa Major cooperates with multiple defense agencies. The most important partner is the Air Force Research Laboratory that co -financed the development of Draper. The company now also works together with the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), and is in discussion with major defense contractors, although Ursa Major does not yet announce specific partnerships.
A potential application for Draper is hypersonic glide vehicles, which can maneuver in the middle of the flight to hit moving goals. This class of weapons requires propulsion systems that can handle extreme circumstances and at the same time persistent forces, said Spagnoletti. “We spent a lot of time with SMDC and MDA, focused on very specific goals and hypersonic goals.”
If flight tests are successful, the next challenge for Ursa Major will be the production scales, which requires government support, he said. Although startups have emerged to meet the demand from the Pentagon for new propulsion technologies, many struggle to scale up production possibilities.
Spagnoletti said that the Executive Order of Iron Dome could reform priorities on the industrial basis of defense. “There has been a lot more activity and we expect this to take place,” he said. Defense agencies work on better understanding the tools at their disposal and to help switch promising technologies from the development phase to full production.
“That is really the dividing line between a ‘great idea’ and the ability to scale up these complex machines,” he said.
