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Blast off in Berthoud: Rocket manufacturer cranking out more affordable, re-useable rocket engines

By June 10, 2022 | updated 3 years ago

Blast off in Berthoud!

Rocket engine manufacturer Ursa Major test-fired two rocket engines Friday next to a rural ranch subdivision and surrounded by prairie land.

Both tests went ground-shakingly well.

But there’s no applause from witnesses.

“We quit doing that after the thousandth test,” said CEO Joe Laurieniti.

061122-dg-biz-ursamajor01.JPG

A cloud of dirt is kicked up from a protective berm as Ursa Major employees and media watch a successful full-duration test firing of one of their “Hadley” engines on Friday, June 10, 2022, at the Ursa Major Technologie’ headquarters in Berthoud, Colo. (Timothy Hurst/The Denver Gazette)



Timothy Hurst/The Denver Gazette


These tests happen almost every week day at Ursa Major’s production facility off County Road 7 at the intersection of Ball Aerospace Drive, south of Berthoud and just west of Interstate 25.

The startup company is barely seven years old and it’s cranking out 30 rocket engines a year, and hopes to ramp up production to 60 per year when the new headquarters building is completed in August. There’s demand for 100 engines per year, he said.

Ursa Major’s value proposition is that it can produce a more affordable, re-useable rocket engine in about half the time it normally takes, about two years. They’re more affordable than most anything else on the market — about $1 million depending on the size of the engine. By way of comparison, it cost $8.4 billion in today’s dollars to build the Apollo F-1 engine. NASA’s Space Launch System engines cost about $140 million. 

So far nine commercial aerospace companies have orders in for Ursa Major engines, named Hadley and Ripley. Up next is Arroway by 2025 — its most powerful yet.

The thing that gave the company a leg up in the funding rounds was an actual product, said Laurieniti.

“We were focused wholly on the engines. We weren’t needing to build launch sites. We weren’t needing to build a cross-country infrastructure. We had this this beautiful facility to help us out,” he said.

The Denver Gazette was onhand Friday in Berthoud, Colo., to watch as Ursa Major test-fired two rocket engines. Here’s a slow-motion look at one of the tests. (Video by Tim Hurst/Denver Gazette)


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The funding then went straight into production. It has raised $140 million in venture capital dollars and private investors, as well as the $85 million Series C funding it secured in December from Blackrock. It’s got about 200 employees, most of whom work in Colorado.

The advances in 3-D printing has cut production time markedly.

“From design, to printing it, to walking it out to a test stand, it’s just a feedback loop that’s 10 times as fast as anywhere I’ve worked before,” he said.

And he’s worked for Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The company somewhat lucked into the production facility. It used to be owned by Ball Aerospace and came with all the zoning and buildings in place.

Asked if the noise bothered neighbors, Laurieniti said they try to build relationships with the surrounding community, and look forward to leading tours of school kids. That’s a far cry from the typically closed production facilities most aerospace companies favor.

“Yeah, we create a bit more noise and shake the ground,” Laurieniti said. ”We’ve done a lot of optimization of our sites the neighbors are minimally impacted by it.

“More than anything, we want them to be supportive and fans of us what we’re doing here. We’re bringing really talented, capable professionals to the area. It’s hopefully helping the local businesses when we take candidates out to lunch.”

PHOTOS: Ursa Major Technologies test-fires engine

They also bring food trucks in for employees.

Laurieniti wanted the facility in Colorado selfishly — he’s a native. His dad worked at Ball Aerospace “so I grew up watching rockets.”

“I always wanted to work on the loud violent fire coming out of the bottom, instead of the stuff on top.”

Vice President of Engineering Bill Murray explained about the two engines being tested. One was experimental and the other was for a customer.

The tests were successful — one going about 40 seconds while demonstrating the maneuverability of the engine. The other showed different levels of thrust for about 30 seconds.

“If the customer test doesn’t fire, sometimes that’s a good thing and points out something we need to improve,” Murray said.

About 15 engines have exploded.

But they call that a “fail forward” and shows the engineers are pushing the limits of the engine’s capability.

The engines are built like Ferraris — one at a time. There’s no production line.

“We built a business plan around focusing on these engines, which are the barrier to entry for most space access and providing them to really any company,” Laurieniti said. “There’s just a tremendous heritage of aerospace history Colorado, so we knew that there would be a talent base here.”

Dennis Huspeni

Reporter

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