DOD Looks to Downsize Solid Rocket Motor Industry

Pentagon Report: Solid-Motor Industry Must Downsize
Space News

The U.S. Defense Department is weighing ideas for sustaining what it says is an overcapitalized solid-rocket motor (SRM) industrial base that includes instituting a joint Air Force-Navy research and development program, accelerating technology work for next-generation missiles and purchasing space launch vehicles at more predictable annual rates, according to an interim report recently sent to Congress.

Ultimately, however, the nation’s manufacturing infrastructure for large solid-rocket boosters, or SRBs, consisting of eight major production and test facilities owned by two companies, needs to shrink, the report said.

“The defense industry developed a significant technical and production capacity in the large-SRM industrial base over the last 50 years meeting both the Department’s strategic needs as well as its space launch needs,” states a redacted version of the report, “SRM Industrial Base Interim Sustainment Plan to Congress,” delivered to lawmakers in June.

“The Department cannot sustain the significant overcapacity that has developed in the industrial base. Sustaining overcapacity is not cost-effective for the Department or the American taxpayers, nor is it a realistic or acceptable business model for the large-SRM prime contractors,” said the document, a copy of which was obtained by Space News.

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