Colorado rocket engine builder Ursa Major announced a new contract and successful flight tests this week, showing how the propulsion firm is carving out a niche in the fields of highest interest to the Pentagon.
Fire one: The AFRL will pay Ursa to continue developing the Draper engine for responsive space, hypersonic, and on-orbit propulsion. Now, the company will build a demonstration vehicle—essentially, a missile—to perform flight tests. It will be the first time Ursa has built more than a propulsion system.
Draper is designed for safety and storability, using kerosene and hydrogen peroxide for propellants. That makes the engine ideal for use in missile defense applications that require long-term readiness.
“We have to solve the whole problem, not just the engine—the way the engine gets fielded and used,” Ursa CTO Brad Appel told Payload.
Fire two: The Pentagon said that the Talon-A reusable hypersonic vehicle, built by Stratolaunch and powered by Ursa Major’s Hadley engine, performed successful test missions in December 2024 and March 2025. Talon-A is the first reusable hypersonic vehicle flown since the U.S. government’s X-15 in 1968.
The next flight of Talon-A is expected this quarter, with Stratolaunch and Ursa both focused on upping their flight cadence to produce more data for the military.
“We’re excited that you can see the cadence has been increasing from the first mission last March [in 2024],” Appel said. ”It’s only going to get faster from there. We’ve ramped our internal team, the way we do mission assurance and risk reduction and production processes.”
Off the dome: The Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense architecture could be a meaningful development for Ursa.
“It’s been fascinating to see [the] creative spark that announcement has seeded in the industry,” Appel said.”We’re happy to provide not just one, but many different types of propulsion options for those entrants looking to compete in the space-based interceptor realm.”
