Exclusive: Ursa eyes space defense with $35 million Draper engine deal

By the numbers: Ursa can right now make one Draper propulsion system per week. But chief executive Dan Jablonsky estimates that can be bumped up to one per day in the next 12-18 months.

• "We're constantly testing and refining the engine," he told Axios.
• Draper has been hot-fired more than 250 times since its inception years ago.

Zoom in: Draper is an offshoot of Ursa's Hadley, which has sustained hypersonic speeds in flights with Stratolaunch. It was jumpstarted by Air Force money.

• About 70% of its parts are 3D printed in-house. That "gives it lots of flexibility, in terms of how we sequence manufacturing, how we hit higher rates of production," Jablonsky said.

Friction point: Ursa would not disclose how many engines are due under the contract, and would not name the company it's working with.

The bottom line: "Our belief is that as we prove the technology in various environments, people will want lots of these things," Jablonsky said.

• "We want to be able to produce them in numbers relevant to the warfighters."

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