Why propulsion could be the critical piece in Golden Dome’s architecture

A test fire of Voyager Technologies' propulsion system. (Photo courtesy of Voyager Technologies.)

Space has become a top-of-mind concern for both offensive and defensive operations and will play a critical role in the Golden Dome initiative.

Breaking Defense spoke with Matt Magaña, president, Space, Defense and National Security at Voyager Technologies , about production and manufacturing challenges for critical elements of space infrastructure, new propulsion capabilities and adapting commercial technologies for use in military applications in space.

Breaking Defense: What’s the threat scenario that’s making space the next warfighting domain?

Magaña: Space is the ultimate high ground. It used to be air, but today our adversaries increasingly have the ability to operate in space and gain an advantage there.

Matt Magaña, president, Space, Defense and National Security at Voyager Technologies

We’re seeing more electronic warfare techniques, which makes that space advantage increasingly important. It’s really a question of how we proliferate capabilities and protect our assets, especially high-value assets. We’ve seen adversaries put a number of different capabilities into play that are really turning space into a warfighting domain.

It’s not just the offense, but also the defense side. It’s thinking about how much everything is satellite driven – navigation, sensing, missile tracking, and command and control to name a few. Protecting those assets is critical in a full-scale war.

To protect yourself, you have to understand what you’re protecting yourself from. That’s where a lot of our technologies and capabilities come into play — being able to know where your adversaries are at any given time, understanding all the frequencies and capabilities they have in radio frequency (RF) realms and how they were using those to continue to put effects on us both here terrestrially and in space. It becomes a much more complex environment that we must protect against.

How has Voyager expanded in the national security and defense areas, how do you see expansion in those areas in the near future?

Voyager has grown its defense business over the last two years. Across the board, and obviously led by all of our artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives across electronics, sensing and capabilities around defense propulsion systems, space propulsion systems and across the whole gamut of critical capabilities that are needed by the Department of War (DoW) and intelligence organizations, including Golden Dome activities.

Golden Dome represents one of the most consequential national offense priorities in the next decade. Voyager is uniquely positioned across this whole architecture, not just in one place, but in several places where performance and innovation matter.

What are the key areas of Golden Dome for you?

We’ve been awarded multiple contracts supporting Golden Dome, and we’ve submitted additional proposals – several with teammates – across mission areas. We’re also working insertion opportunities across existing programs where our technologies can bring added capability quickly.

A major focus for us is intercept during the boost and engagement phases. We bring systems including divert and attitude control systems, guidance and navigation, radiation-hardened computing, sensors, star trackers, and data transport and communications. The opportunity for us is really to bring those proven capabilities together and insert them where they can have the greatest impact across the Golden Dome architecture.

How are you able to take advantage of the shift in thinking about adapting commercial technology for military use?

In many cases, there’s commercial applications and capabilities and trying to insert those into technologies, i.e. taking commercial chips and militarizing them to allow us to get to much lower price points.

One of the biggest aspects that Voyager brings is our partnerships. Over the last few years we’ve announced multiple partnerships across different commercial applications and commercial companies, and we’re bringing all that to fruition now. How do you convert that commercial tech into the defense realm and bring that interface into the DoW ultimately at the speed that they need?

Everybody’s at the table on Golden Dome trying to find ways to rapidly get the capability in the hands of the government. But that’s actually really hard, especially when we’re trying to do a little bit of both. We’re trying to take current capabilities and scale those, which we’re doing on the weapons side. Then on the other side, bringing new technology at cost points that I’ve never seen before. In those cases, it’s bringing the commercial capability to bear.

Footage of a test fire of Voyager Technologies’ propulsion system. (Video courtesy of Voyager Technologies.)

One of your big focuses has been propulsion and developing capabilities there. Tell us about this.

There are a few pieces that we’ve been developing for many years. First, we’ve been investing money into our throttleable propulsion system. We’re demonstrating capability within record time now to go from a clean sheet design to a full DACS hot fire test in less than a couple hundred days timeframe. That’s built off of technology that we’ve been investing in for over 11 years.

Things like additive manufacturing, materials and capabilities that have now been introduced in the industry were never there 10, 15 years ago.

Second, we announced earlier this year the Voyager American Defense Complex in Pueblo, Colorado, that we have been investing heavily into, not just to be able to support our DACs and attitude control systems, but also support the next generation of manufacturing for solid rocket motors. There’s so much demand there right now. It’s how fast can we build and get tooling and equipment put in place to meet the demand and the ramp.

We’ve been working hand in hand with the DoW and folks to do that. We broke ground in February, and buildings are already up and getting all equipment installed and we’ve been delivering booster motors already out of Colorado.

What is it that your propulsion systems are doing that others can’t?

Our propulsion systems have the capability to start and stop, which provides longer engagements on targets, the ability to conserve energy and much more accurate engagements on effects. And we’re always working on new tech. We’re now supporting a newly awarded DARPA program for solid rocket motors, providing tailorable thrust control to meet unique mission requirements.

Solid rocket motor production has a lot of safety concerns, a lot of precision manufacturing requirements. How are you managing manufacturing and supply chain challenges?

As simple as they look and as simple as they are, these are complex systems. If you’ve ever baked a cake before, the sequence in which you do it, how long it sits, the mixing process, if you overmix it, if you undermix it, all those things matter.

Part of our unique capability is that we have a whole part of our business that does critical chemicals, and part of that’s onshoring those critical chemicals. A lot of these things, just like baking, it’s about the chemistry of the solids and the limits and the things that you can and can’t do from a manufacturing perspective in order for us to speed up the process without breaking the process, because there are a lot of things that you can do much faster, but it’s also more costly to do it that way.

For us, it’s finding that perfect balance of innovation and tech where you have limits of chemistry and how chemistry works on solids to ensure that we can ramp and scale these things as quickly as possible. A lot of it is facilitation and infrastructure. At the Voyager American Defense Complex, our infrastructure across the board, whether it’s mixing, grinding, assembling or testing, those are where the pinch points are across the supply chain, in addition to storage.

Storage becomes a challenge with scale. You have to keep finished goods and raw goods. In Pueblo, there are more than a thousand silos available for storage. That enables us to move very quickly, and with the right amount of space to scale our manufacturing and production.

Any other big takeaways from what Voyager is doing right now?

We are in one of the most consequential moments, where priorities are aligned. Voyager is uniquely positioned across the defense architecture. Not just in one place, but across interception and propulsion units, guidance and navigation, radiation, hardened compute, sensor, star tracking, comms and data. We are in several layers where performance and innovation matter most.

We are stepping up to that challenge from a speed and agility perspective. Ultimately this is not just a single program. It is a portfolio of missions and mission threads, each with multiple year funding profiles. We expect growth across our systems, whether that’s teaming with companies as the architecture matures or working directly with the government to bring capability faster and more affordably.

Voyager Technologies公司推进系统的试射。（照片由Voyager Technologies公司提供。）

太空已成为进攻和防御行动中最受关注的问题，并将在“金穹顶”计划中发挥关键作用。

Breaking Defense 采访了 Voyager Technologies 太空、国防和国家安全总裁 Matt Magaña，讨论了太空基础设施关键要素的生产和制造挑战、新的推进能力以及如何将商业技术应用于太空军事领域。

突破防御：是什么威胁情景使得太空成为下一个作战领域？

马加尼亚：太空是终极制高点。过去是空中，但如今我们的对手越来越有能力在太空作战并在那里获得优势。

Voyager Technologies公司太空、国防和国家安全总裁Matt Magaña

我们看到电子战技术日益增多，这使得太空优势变得愈发重要。关键在于我们如何扩散能力并保护我们的资产，尤其是高价值资产。我们已经看到对手运用多种不同的能力，真正将太空变成了一个作战领域。

这不仅关乎进攻，也关乎防御。关键在于思考卫星在多大程度上驱动着一切——导航、传感、导弹跟踪、指挥控制等等。在全面战争中，保护这些资产至关重要。

为了保护自己，你必须了解你要防范的是什么。这正是我们众多技术和能力发挥作用的地方——能够随时掌握对手的位置，了解他们在射频（RF）领域拥有的所有频率和能力，以及他们如何利用这些能力持续影响我们在地球和太空中的生活。我们必须防范的环境变得更加复杂。

Voyager在国家安全和国防领域是如何扩张的？您认为在不久的将来，这些领域会如何扩张？

过去两年，Voyager 的国防业务全面增长，这主要得益于我们在电子、传感和国防推进系统、太空推进系统等各个领域的人工智能 (AI) 计划，以及战争部 (DoW) 和情报机构（包括金穹顶行动）所需的所有关键能力。

金穹顶是未来十年国家进攻战略中最具影响力的优先事项之一。Voyager 系统在整个架构中占据独特优势，它不仅在某一方面发挥作用，而是在多个对性能和创新至关重要的环节都发挥着关键作用。

您认为金穹顶的关键领域是什么？

我们已获得多项支持金穹顶的合同，并提交了其他提案——其中一些是与团队成员合作完成的——涵盖多个任务领域。我们还在积极寻求机会，将我们的技术融入现有项目中，以便快速提升项目能力。

我们的主要关注点在于助推和交战阶段的拦截。我们带来的系统包括偏航和姿态控制系统、制导和导航系统、抗辐射计算系统、传感器、星敏感器以及数据传输和通信系统。我们面临的机遇在于将这些成熟的能力整合起来，并部署到能够最大程度发挥其作用的“金穹顶”系统架构中。

您如何利用将商业技术应用于军事领域的思维转变？

在许多情况下，存在商业应用和功能，并试图将这些应用和功能融入到技术中，例如将商用芯片军事化，以便我们能够获得更低的价格。

Voyager项目最大的优势之一在于我们的合作伙伴关系。过去几年，我们宣布了与不同商业应用领域和商业公司建立的多项合作关系，现在我们正在将这些合作成果转化为现实。如何将这些商业技术转化为国防领域应用，并最终以国防部所需的速度将这种接口引入国防部？

所有人都聚集在金顶大厦，试图找到尽快将相关能力交付政府的方法。但这实际上非常困难，尤其是在我们试图兼顾两方面的情况下。一方面，我们试图扩大现有能力的规模，这在武器方面我们正在努力。另一方面，我们还要以前所未有的成本引进新技术。在这些情况下，我们需要借助商业力量。

这是Voyager Technologies公司推进系统试射的影像。（视频由Voyager Technologies公司提供。）

你们的重点工作之一是推进系统及其相关能力的开发。请介绍一下这方面的情况。

我们有几项技术已经研发多年。首先，我们一直在投资研发可调推力推进系统。现在，我们已展现出在创纪录的时间内完成从全新设计到完整DACS热试车测试的能力，整个过程仅需不到几百天。这项技术是我们11年来持续投入研发的成果。

增材制造、材料和技术等如今已引入行业的事物，在 10 年前、15 年前是根本不存在的。

其次，我们今年早些时候宣布在科罗拉多州普韦布洛建设“旅行者”美国国防综合体，我们一直在大力投资，不仅是为了支持我们的直接攻击控制（DAC）和姿态控制系统，也是为了支持下一代固体火箭发动机的制造。目前市场需求非常旺盛。关键在于我们能否以最快的速度完成建设，并安装必要的工具和设备，以满足需求并实现产能爬坡。

我们一直与陶氏化学公司及其他相关方密切合作，共同推进这项工作。我们二月份破土动工，现在厂房已经建成，所有设备都在安装中，而且我们已经开始从科罗拉多州交付助推电机了。

你们的推进系统有哪些其他系统无法做到的优势？

我们的推进系统具备启动和停止功能，这可以延长对目标的攻击时间，节省能源，并显著提高打击精度。我们始终致力于新技术研发。目前，我们正在支持一项新近获得美国国防高级研究计划局 (DARPA) 资助的固体火箭发动机项目，该项目旨在提供可定制的推力控制，以满足独特的任务需求。

固体火箭发动机的生产涉及诸多安全问题，对制造精度要求也很高。您是如何应对生产和供应链方面的挑战的？

它们看起来简单，做起来也简单，但实际上却是复杂的系统。如果你烤过蛋糕，就会知道操作顺序、静置时间、搅拌过程、搅拌过度还是搅拌不足，所有这些因素都至关重要。

我们独特的优势之一在于，我们业务中有一个专门从事关键化学品生产的部门，而这其中一部分工作就是将这些关键化学品的生产转移到国内。很多事情，就像烘焙一样，都与固体的化学性质、生产工艺的局限性以及哪些操作可行哪些不可行有关。为了在不破坏工艺流程的前提下加快生产速度，我们必须考虑这些因素。因为虽然很多事情可以做得更快，但那样做成本也会更高。

对我们而言，关键在于找到创新与技术之间的完美平衡，克服化学及其在固体中作用方式的局限性，确保我们能够尽快扩大生产规模。这其中很大一部分在于基础设施和配套设施。在“航海家”美国国防综合体，无论是混合、研磨、组装还是测试，整个供应链的瓶颈都在于这些环节，此外还有仓储环节。

随着规模扩大，仓储成为一项挑战。我们需要储存成品和原材料。在普韦布洛，有超过一千个筒仓可供储存。这使我们能够快速行动，并拥有足够的空间来扩大制造和生产规模。

从“旅行者号”目前的任务中，我们还能得出其他什么重要结论吗？

我们正处于一个至关重要的时刻，各项优先事项都已明确。旅行者号在整个防御架构中占据着独特的地位。它不仅作用于某一方面，而是涵盖了拦截和推进单元、制导和导航、辐射防护、加固计算、传感器、星敏感度跟踪、通信和数据等多个层面。在这些层面上，性能和创新至关重要。

我们正从速度和敏捷性的角度积极应对这一挑战。归根结底，这并非单一项目，而是一系列任务和任务分支的组合，每个任务和分支都有多年的资金支持计划。我们预期我们的系统将全面发展，无论是随着架构的成熟与企业合作，还是直接与政府合作以更快、更经济的方式交付能力。