America’s ability to deter conflict depends on an industrial base capable of producing critical munitions at the speed and scale modern warfare demands. Before a missile can strike its target or an artillery round can extend its reach, someone must solve one of the defense industry’s oldest and most stubborn problems: how to manufacture the propulsion system that powers it.

For decades, traditional propulsion manufacturing has remained remarkably unchanged: slow, capital intensive, hazardous, and increasingly incapable of keeping pace in a world where military readiness is measured not just by technological superiority, but by production capacity.

Firehawk recognized the propulsion bottleneck long before it became one of the defining issues confronting the defense industrial base. Instead of designing another missile to compete in an already crowded market, the company chose to reinvent the very foundation upon which tactical propulsion is built. By replacing legacy manufacturing methods with digital engineering, advanced thermoplastics, compression molding, and additive manufacturing, the company is rewriting the economics of solid rocket motors. Its innovations are reducing production timelines from months to hours and enabling rapid design iteration.

Traditional solid rocket motor manufacturing relies on a cast-and-cure process. Large industrial mixers blend energetic materials into a liquid slurry before it is poured into motor casings, cured over several weeks, and prepared for assembly. The process demands expensive infrastructure, specialized equipment, extensive safety precautions, and long production cycles that have become increasingly difficult to reconcile with today’s rapidly evolving defense requirements.

Firehawk looked at those constraints differently. Rather than refining the existing process, it questioned whether the process itself still made sense. The answer emerged through a proprietary thermoplastic manufacturing platform that replaces conventional polyurethane-based binders with highly adaptable thermoplastic elastomer formulations. Instead of producing propellant that begins to cure after curative addition, Firehawk manufactures stable energetic pellets that can be stored until needed before being rapidly compression molded or additively manufactured into finished rocket motors. What once required 45 to 60 days can now be accomplished in a matter of hours, fundamentally changing both production speed and manufacturing flexibility.

“We really leaned in on the fact that if we wanted to compete, we had to bring innovation to propellant production,” says Will Edwards, CEO of Firehawk. “We wanted to create a new way to produce propellant in high volumes at low cost.”

Firehawk’s thermoplastic technology allows engineers to tailor propellant formulations at the molecular level. Unlike traditional binders such as hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), whose availability is constrained by broader industrial demand, Firehawk can develop thousands of customized polymer variants optimized for specific operational environments. Engineers can adjust formulations for extreme temperatures, structural loads, artillery launches, or specialized aerospace applications without redesigning the entire manufacturing process. That same flexibility has transformed research and development. Designing and qualifying a new rocket motor has traditionally required eighteen to twenty-four months because of lengthy production queues and manufacturing limitations. Firehawk’s digital workflow compresses that process dramatically, allowing engineers to move from customer requirements to test-ready motors in approximately six weeks. Instead of locking defense programs into propulsion systems that remain unchanged for decades, the company enables rapid iteration as mission requirements evolve.

Beyond artillery, Firehawk is aiming to become a second-source supplier for the Hydra 70 rocket at its newly acquired facility in Crawford, Mississippi. The company was recently selected to produce a Hydra-70 prototype by the U.S. Army and expects to integrate 40,000 rockets at initial capacity in 2027, scaling up to 125,000 in 2028.

Edwards believes many observers underestimate the breadth of the company’s capabilities. “People often think we’re simply a propellant company,” he says. “But if you’re a propellant company, you’re also a solid rocket motor company. We produce the propellant, the motors and ultimately the rockets. From tip to tail, aside from guidance and navigation, we build just about everything.”

Equally important is the philosophy guiding the company’s growth. Firehawk has never viewed itself as a disruptor seeking to replace established defense contractors. Instead, it sees itself as an enabler of the broader defense industrial base. Through removing production bottlenecks and expanding manufacturing capacity, Firehawk has partnered with some of the largest defense contractors in the world, including General Dynamics OTS, Hanwha Defense USA and LIG Defense & Aerospace.

That collaborative mindset is reflected in the team Edwards has assembled. Firehawk’s leadership includes veterans from across the energetics, propulsion, engineering, operations, and munitions sectors, bringing together centuries of combined experience. Rather than approaching the market from the outside, the company has been shaped by professionals who spent decades confronting the industry’s limitations firsthand and now have the opportunity to redesign the processes they once worked within.

Today, Firehawk employs approximately 125 people across a growing network of facilities. The company’s headquarters in Addison, Texas anchors the company’s operations, while rocket integration is planned for its 636-acre campus in Crawford, Mississippi. The 340-acre Great Plains Arsenal under construction in Lawton, Oklahoma, once commissioned in early 2027, will become the company’s principal propellant and artillery motor manufacturing center, supported by additional research and testing facilities across Texas. Together, these sites form the foundation of a manufacturing network designed for both resilience and scale. In the near future, Firehawk expects to become one of America’s largest producers of artillery motors while expanding into larger tactical propulsion systems over the coming years. Yet its broader vision reaches beyond market share or production volume. Edwards envisions Firehawk becoming the propulsion partner powering an entire generation of defense platforms, and a trusted supplier whose technologies quietly enable innovation across the industry rather than competing for the spotlight.