Anduril to Develop Rocket Motors for U.S. Navy’s SM-6 Missile

Anduril Industries has been awarded a $19 million contract by the U.S. Navy to design, build, and test second-stage rocket motors for the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6).

The SM-6 is crucial for countering air, surface, and hypersonic missile threats and can be deployed on 60 surface ships. The Navy plans to acquire hundreds of SM-6 variants in the coming years.

Under this program, Anduril will develop a 21-inch diameter second-stage rocket motor for an SM-6 variant aimed at fleet area air defense against advanced, fast-moving threats.

This contract marks Anduril's first public contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) as a rocket motor supplier, facilitated by Program Executive Office Integrated Weapons System (IWS) 3.0, which oversees the design, production, fielding, and maintenance of naval surface weapons systems.

Currently, Anduril supplies sub-20-inch diameter rocket motors to several other DoD programs and customers.

Development and testing of these next-generation solid rocket motors will take place at Anduril’s facilities in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Mississippi Solid Rocket Complex in McHenry, Mississippi. Earlier this week, the company said it is expanding its Mississippi facility with the aim of increasing the annual production capacity of solid rocket motors (SRMs) from 600 to over 6,000.

Anduril’s McHenry site is a 450-acre facility capable of high-rate energetics production for solid rocket motors up to 42 inches in diameter.