Australia builds sovereign capability to manufacture solid rockets

Australia’s ability to develop and produce solid rocket motors on shore and at scale is being explored to bolster sovereign aerospace and defence capabilities.

Solid rockets are powered by solid fuel and oxidiser, which makes them safer to store and transport than liquid rockets.

This week, Lockheed Martin Australia and Thales Australia signed a Teaming Agreement to explore opportunities to develop and produce solid rocket motors for the guided multi launch rocket system (GMLRS).

Also, Black Sky Industries re-launched last week as a sovereign developer and supplier of solid rocket propellant and motors to the Australian defence sector.

Formerly Black Sky Aerospace, established by Blake Nikolic and Karl Hemphill in 2018, Black Sky re-launched with co-founder Dr Vu Tran who told Cosmos that Australia is well positioned to manufacture solid rockets – with the raw materials needed to produce the key ingredient of solid rocket propellant and the physical space necessary for the required static fires, tests, and launches away from populated areas.

What is a solid rocket?

A rocket burns fuel, or propellant, to produce high temperature, high pressure gases that are forced out of a nozzle at its base to generate thrust. This propellant can come in 2 different states: solid or liquid.

Liquid rockets’ fuel and oxidising agent are stored in separate tanks. The liquids combine and ignite in a combustion chamber, which means the thrust can be shut down and re-started as needed. However, they are challenging to store for long periods of time.

Solid rockets, while they can’t be stopped and started, are much more stable, making them easier and safer to transport, store and use. The solid fuel and oxidiser are combined with a rubbery binder, resulting in a mixture that is then cast into a solid shape.

“As a result, the fuel itself forms part of the structure of the motor. That shape that we get in the mould is just as important as the formula itself,” explains Tran.

“We look at geometry and the formulation of the motor to get specific performance characteristics … whether it be to carry a certain payload, to reach a certain altitude, or to have certain characteristics of take-off.

“Black Sky operates 2 launch ranges in western Queensland, one of which is in Thargomindah, which is 3 million acres. That is, as far as we know, the largest private launch range in the world, operated here in Australia, here in Queensland.

“The ability for us to be able to design, test and then manufacture all in the one place, all in the same cycle, all very rapidly, is incredibly important.”

The applications of Black Sky’s solid rockets are threefold: missiles and guided weapons, rocket assisted take-off (RATO), to help deliver drones and unmanned arial vehicles to altitude and velocity, and testing partners’ payloads under G-forces.

Tran says that the ability to design and manufacture customised solid rocket motors is incredibly limited worldwide. The development of the other components of a rocket – the flight computer and rocket airframe, including the nose cone, rocket body, and fins – is by comparison, easier.

“In the United States, there are 2 major suppliers of solid rocket propellant and solid rocket motors … There are some small disruptors that are coming through, but ultimately, they own the world … at least in the Western Hemisphere,” he says.

Black Sky has built their capability to manufacture solid rocket motors and the propellant’s core ingredient – ammonium perchlorate – from scratch.

“There are 2 key ingredients when it comes to ammonium perchlorate: ammonium and sodium chloride salt. And if there’s one thing we have literally tonnes of here in Queensland it’s salt and ammonium.”

Black Sky isn’t alone in its efforts to build the capabilities to develop and produce solid rocket motors in Australia.

Director of Programs, Strategic Capabilities Office at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, James Heading, told Cosmos that Thales Australia have been making rocket motors here for years.

According to Heading, Lockheed Martin’s Teaming Agreement with Thales will look at the opportunities to develop and produce solid rocket motors, firstly for GMRLS, at the facilities in Benalla in Victoria and Mulwala in New South Wales.

They will then explore future opportunities for other solid rocket motor production.

“Thales, most recently, has been doing quite a number of rocket motors in small quantities for research and development tasks, together with the Defence Science and Technology Group,” says Heading.

“So, they’ve got a very good track record in that capability, but the track record there has been very much in research development, small scale type production. What we’re really talking about now is to bring them up to a manufacturing scale.

“So, rather than building the half a dozen here and there and being very boutique, if you like, in those numbers, it’s to get into that production rate.

“An important part of what we’re trying to get here in country is, not just to produce what’s required for Australian consumption, but to enter into the global market for rocket motors.

“There’s quite a demand for solid rocket motors writ large.”

Welcoming the news, Tran and says the manufacturing of rocket motors is critical to Australia’s sovereign aerospace and defence capabilities.

“As a company who has spent its entire existence focused around innovating on solid rocket propulsion and production at scale, Black Sky is excited to finally see overseas primes take an interest in the manufacturing of solid rocket motors in Australia,” he says.

“It truly reinforces the demand and need for this capability for the country.”