The Pentagon’s effort to replenish missile inventories is giving an opportunity to startup manufacturers who see the problem as involving not only a shortage of industrial space, but also the way factories themselves are built. Companies such as Machina, Hadrian and Freeform are using software, robotics and automated production methods to challenge a traditional model that relies on dedicated machines, specialized molds and tooling, and skilled labor to produce limited quantities of complex parts.
Some of these technologies come from the commercial space sector, which has developed more flexible methods for handling design changes and production volumes. During this year’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Los Angeles-based Machina displayed a 16-foot-long structure for a hypersonic vehicle body that it made for Ursa Major, which is expanding from rocket propulsion into the development of complete hypersonic missile systems.
AI for Manufacturing Control
Edward Mehr, Machina’s co-founder and CEO, who previously worked at SpaceX and Relativity Space, said the structure demonstrates how artificial intelligence can be used to control the machines that manufacture weapons, not to design the weapons themselves. He told SpaceNews that missile programs “are constrained not by design, but by production.”
Machina’s platform, called RoboCraftsman, uses robotic arms to gradually form metal sheets into custom structures for the aerospace industry. The company employs artificial intelligence to give robotic equipment greater autonomy while carrying out physical tasks, with the ability to switch between different processes and geometries and reduce the need for dedicated production tooling.
Qualification for a Component in the JASSM Program
Machina recently received a qualification contract from Lockheed Martin to support the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program, known as JASSM, a long-range cruise missile that Lockheed Martin manufactures for the Air Force. The agreement is significant for Machina because it places an assembly manufactured using the company’s process within the qualification procedures for an operational missile program.
Lockheed Martin is also an investor in Machina through its investment arm, Lockheed Martin Ventures. Mehr said manufacturing hypersonic missile-body structures has become a major growth area for the company, which is seeking to prove that its approach can consistently meet the engineering tolerances, quality requirements and production rates imposed by major weapons programs.
From Dedicated Lines to Programmable Factories
According to Mehr, traditional programs may require tens of millions of dollars to purchase dedicated equipment, along with lengthy setup periods before the first production piece is available for testing. Machina offers an alternative based on a programmable factory, in which much of the change can be shifted to software instead of manufacturing new molds, equipment and a dedicated production line.
This means, according to the example Mehr provided, that equipment that had been producing automotive components could be reprogrammed to manufacture a missile structure after being supplied with the digital design. However, the company still has to prove that this approach meets military programs’ requirements for precision, quality and production capacity.
Machina is preparing to expand after raising $124 million earlier this year to fund a new 200,000-square-foot U.S. factory, aimed at moving its technology from low-volume work to larger production operations. Its customer list also includes NASA and Toyota.