
The Defense Department last Friday said it awarded three companies a combined $39.6 million using Defense Production Act (DPA) funding to expand the industrial base for solid rocket motors (SRMs). The largest award, $25.2 million, went to Materials Resources LLC (MRL) to demonstrate the company’s prototype additive manufacturing cells to produce metallic rocket motor cases. MRL, which is based in Xenia, Ohio, says its scalable manufacturing cells can quickly switch between materials and component designs to “drastically reduce lead times…