Texas-Based Company Wins Pentagon Contract for 3D Printed Explosives

Supernova Defense & Space is developing unique 3D printing processes that will allow it to produce military-grade energetic materials as the US Department of Defense (DoD) seeks to widen the industry base capable of providing the explosives it needs.

The Texas-based company Supernova Industries established the subsidiary start-up company in Supernova Defense & Space (SD&S) based in Austin, Texas in 2024.

SD&S has secured an initial $2 million Pentagon contract to develop and prove its cutting-edge 3D production system. The contract is funded by the DoD’s Information Analysis Center as part of the American Center for Manufacturing & Innovation’s (ACMI) Critical Chemicals Pilot Program.

The company says it will use a new proprietary technology it calls “Viscous Lithography Manufacturing,” or VLM, which will allow it to safely, cost effectively and consistently manufacture both conventional and innovative explosive material for use in artillery ammunition, solid rocket motors, aircraft bombs, pyrotechnics and small arms propellant.

In outline the process involves laminating energetic material with SD&S’s additive which then allows the matrix to be cured by light. The company has already printed a range of simulated energetic products and is now working on producing various explosive formulae along with “formers” that will enable any shape and size of explosive grain to be printed.

Other Topics of Interest

Russian Figure Skaters Reportedly Onboard Jet Crashed Over Washington

Russian figure skaters were reportedly onboard the jet that crashed with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday evening. Their fate remains uncertain.

Victor Boelscher, Head of ACMI’s federal programs told the US military issues website Defense News that the ability to print energetic materials using 3D techniques “will enable the production of critical components for weapon systems that are essential for national security.”

The war in Ukraine has focused the DoD on ensuring it has sufficient supplies of explosive materials not only to replace the ammunition stocks it has provided to Kyiv but also the realization that previous munition stocks were inadequate for an intensive, modern battlefield.

It has already taken steps to ramp up production of 155mm artillery amminition which has exposed the limited domestic explosive manufacturing capability and the need to seek explosive and propellant fillings from allies. Doug Bush, the US Army’s acquisition chief under the Biden administration, identified a need to expand the country’s explosives supply to avoid having to rely on overseas providers to feed the proposed 100,000 a month production.

Bush told a Center for Strategic and International Studies seminar in Washington in February last year that “You have to produce enough explosives – either IMX-104 or TNT – to fill that many shells that fast and that production capacity does not exist in the United States by itself.”

In November the Pentagon awarded a $425 million contract to REPKON USA to design and build a new explosive material production facility Graham, Kentucky as a first step to securing domestic self-reliance.