Orbital Composites, a Campbell, California-based advanced manufacturing company, has won a $1.9 million Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) contract from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force. The award funds continued development of Orbital's robotic additive manufacturing (AM) platform for extreme environment materials — components engineered to survive temperatures exceeding 3,000°C, high-velocity combustion gases, and repeated thermal shock.
Closing a Critical Manufacturing Gap
The contract reflects growing recognition across the defense, space, and energy sectors that the United States faces a structural shortfall in producing the advanced materials behind next-generation systems. Rocket nozzles, heat shields, hypersonic vehicle structures, jet engine hot sections, and nuclear reactor components have long been constrained by prohibitive cost, 12- to 18-month cycle times, and limited domestic capacity. Orbital combines robotics, advanced materials, and physical AI to compress that timeline dramatically.
"This work addresses a critical barrier to the rapid scaling of manufacturing for high-temperature rocket nozzles to serve the U.S. warfighter," said Amolak Badesha, Chief Executive Officer of Orbital Composites. "This is also about restoring U.S. manufacturing dominance in materials that are foundational to our national security and economic competitiveness."
Physical AI on the Factory Floor
At the core of the company's approach is its Orbital S platform, a multi-robot additive manufacturing system that produces advanced composite rocket nozzles and other extreme-environment parts. Orbital describes a future where AI-driven factories take in a design file and output a mission-ready part at operationally relevant cost and cycle time. "Extreme environment materials are the bottleneck in some of the most critical systems the U.S. fields," said founder and CTO Cole Nielsen-Cole.
Backed by SpaceWERX and AFWERX
SpaceWERX, part of AFWERX, partners with startups and nontraditional vendors to accelerate commercial space technologies; in fiscal year 2025 it awarded more than 300 contracts totaling $510 million. Orbital is working with defense prime contractors, U.S. government program offices, and commercial space and energy providers to scale qualification and production. The award echoes a wider surge of robotics and AI money flowing into space and defense, from Boeing's $2B Space Force MUOS satellite contract to MDA Space's $620M acquisition of Blue Canyon Technologies and Katalyst Space's GEO satellite-servicing raise.
Reporting based on coverage from PR Newswire and Space.com.