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U.S. Navy Funds Northrop Grumman to Develop New Rocket Motor to Counter Hypersonic Threats.
The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $94.3 million contract to develop a new 21-inch second-stage rocket motor aimed at extending the reach of the SM-6 missile family. The move highlights a near-term strategy to counter advanced air, surface, and hypersonic threats by upgrading propulsion rather than fielding an entirely new interceptor.
Northrop Grumman stated on January 7, 2026, that the U.S. Navy awarded the company a $94.3 million contract to develop and qualify a new 21-inch diameter second-stage solid rocket motor to support extended-range missile programs. The effort is explicitly framed around countering fast-moving air, surface, and hypersonic threats, and marks a notable evolution in how the Navy is approaching performance growth within its existing interceptor inventory. Rather than waiting for an entirely new missile design, the service is targeting propulsion as a near-term lever to expand reach, speed, and terminal energy.
The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman a $94.3 million contract to develop a larger 21-inch rocket motor aimed at extending the range and effectiveness of SM-6 missiles against advanced air, surface, and hypersonic threats (Picture Source: Northrop Grumman)
The contract covers continued design work as well as low-rate initial production of 60 motors, with manufacturing and testing centered at Northrop Grumman’s Propulsion Innovation Center in Elkton, Maryland. The quantity is significant, suggesting a full qualification pathway rather than a limited technology demonstrator. Such a batch allows for repeated static firings, environmental and vibration testing, lot acceptance trials, and early flight test integration, all of which are prerequisites for transitioning a rocket motor from development into an operational supply chain.
The technical importance of the 21-inch diameter lies primarily in geometry and physics. Compared to the 13.5-inch class motors used as sustainers in current Standard Missile-6 configurations, a 21-inch motor offers roughly 2.4 times the cross-sectional area. This increase translates directly into greater internal volume for propellant, insulation, and optimized grain geometry, even before length is adjusted. The result is higher total impulse and improved energy retention across the missile’s trajectory, particularly in the terminal phase where maneuvering targets demand sustained speed and closing energy rather than an early velocity spike.
The Standard Missile‑6 occupies a unique position in the Navy’s arsenal as a multi-mission weapon capable of long-range air defense, anti-surface warfare, and sea-based terminal ballistic missile defense. Existing variants combine a 21-inch booster with a smaller second-stage propulsion package, a compromise that balances compatibility with the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System against performance constraints. For several years, the Navy has signaled interest in replacing that smaller sustainer with a full-diameter second stage to extend the missile’s kinematic envelope without fundamentally altering its external interfaces.
In that context, the most plausible near-term application for the new motor is the SM-6 Block IB, the Navy’s planned extended-range evolution of the Standard Missile family. Previous reporting by the Congressional Research Service has outlined Navy plans to develop a 21-inch dual-thrust rocket motor for SM-6, explicitly linking the propulsion upgrade to improved offensive and defensive reach and identifying the resulting configuration as Block IB. Concept imagery and program descriptions associated with that variant increasingly point toward a more uniform 21-inch body, aligning it more closely with the Navy’s larger interceptors while retaining Mk 41 compatibility.
The emphasis on hypersonic threats in the Navy’s language is deliberate rather than rhetorical. Both the Navy and the Missile Defense Agency have highlighted the need to adapt existing interceptors to address maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicles within a layered defense architecture. While a larger second-stage motor does not, by itself, solve the hypersonic interception problem, it addresses a fundamental constraint that cannot be bypassed: engaging faster targets at longer distances requires more total impulse and better energy management throughout the flight profile. In practical terms, a hotter and larger second stage increases the interceptor’s battlespace and improves the probability of a successful endgame against highly dynamic threats.
Beyond performance, the award is revealing from a programmatic standpoint. Raytheon remains the prime contractor and industrial lead for SM-6 production, positioning the missile as a “one missile, many missions” solution deployable from both ship-based and land-based launchers. However, the Navy’s decision to directly fund propulsion development through Northrop Grumman reflects a broader Department of Defense trend toward decoupling critical subsystems from missile primes when speed, capacity, or competition becomes a priority. By treating the rocket motor as government-directed common hardware, the Navy preserves the option to insert the same propulsion solution into multiple missile lines.
The industrial-base dimension reinforces that logic. Northrop Grumman has stated that it has invested approximately $1 billion since 2018 to expand solid rocket motor capacity, with propulsion work distributed across facilities in West Virginia, Utah, and Maryland, all of which are undergoing incremental expansion. In parallel, Raytheon has acknowledged propulsion supply constraints by moving to broaden its supplier base, including efforts to establish additional solid rocket motor production capacity within the United States. Together, these moves underscore how propulsion has shifted from a background manufacturing concern to a strategic dependency shaping missile production rates and readiness.
The Navy’s statement that it intends to deploy the extended-range propulsion technology “across various platforms” is therefore a key indicator of intent. If the 21-inch motor completes qualification without major redesign and production scales as planned, it could become more than a single-program upgrade. It would represent a modular propulsion building block applicable to other Mk 41-launched weapons requiring greater reach, potentially bridging the gap between today’s Standard Missile variants and future generations of hypersonic interceptors. In that sense, the contract reflects not just an incremental improvement, but a deliberate effort to buy time, performance, and flexibility through propulsion while longer-term missile programs continue to mature.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.