Rocket company extends Youngstown partnership

Aug 5, 2023

YOUNGSTOWN — Ursa Major, the Colorado-based rocket propulsion company that has an advanced manufacturing lab in Youngstown, and America Makes have extended their partnership.

The company and America Makes, also in Youngstown, began their relationship in 2021 with the creation of the lab to create additive manufacturing capability for a NASA-developed copper-chrome-niobium alloy with Ursa Major’s first large-scale 3D printer, and to produce prototype thrust chambers for the vacuum variant of the Hadley liquid rocket engine.

Under a new agreement, Ursa Major and America Makes will continue their partnership through mid-2024 and transition from printing prototypes to printing production and engine qualification hardware.

The lab is at the Youngstown Business Incubator downtown.

“With our resources in Youngstown, we can reduce the production and delivery cycle for combustion chambers from six months to one month,” Brad Appel, chief technology officer at Ursa Major, said.

The first contract in 2021 was for $3 million. The extension is for about $1.2 million, according to the company.

The alloy, part of a family of NASA-developed alloys, is used in high-heat applications such as liquid rocket engine combustion devices because of its high conductivity and strength. Additive manufacturing allows Ursa Major to speed up engine production and apply improvements taken from testing in real time, which results in lower costs. Ursa Major’s rocket engines are more than 80 percent 3D-printed by mass.

“Ursa Major has been a great addition to our Youngstown ecosystem. We are excited to continue our collaboration on improving producibility and lead-time reduction of defense industrial base relevant parts,” John Wilczynski, executive director of America Makes, said.

America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, is the national business accelerator in additive manufacturing and 3D printing.

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