The US Navy has awarded Ursa Major a $10-million contract to advance development of the MK 104 solid rocket motor as part of efforts to strengthen the country’s missile propulsion industrial base.
The award will fund the motor’s progress through critical design review and static fire testing, bringing the program closer to production.
To support the effort, the Colorado-based company will use its Lynx manufacturing approach, which is designed to produce adaptable solid rocket motors at a rate of hundreds of units annually.
Jason Meredith, president of Solid Missile Systems at Ursa Major, said this development emphasizes scalability and faster processes as “solid rocket motor production has become the bottleneck in missile manufacturing.”
MK 104 Program
The contract builds on a series of recent milestones for the MK 104.
In September 2025, Raytheon awarded Avio USA a purchase order worth up to $26 million to perform engineering work supporting the Standard Missile program.
Earlier, in 2024, the navy broadened its supplier base by awarding X-Bow contracts to produce MK 104 solid rocket motors using its proprietary manufacturing processes.
In April of the same year, Ursa Major also partnered with the US Navy to develop a 3D-printed replacement for the MK 104 motor used in the SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 missile families.
