Solid rocket production and supply chains draw new scrutiny
The defense industrial base has moved to the center of Washington's national security discourse as the Pentagon grapples with two major conflicts and the limits of weapons production capacity.
What began during the Ukraine war as a debate over munitions shortages has evolved into broader concerns about whether the United States can produce advanced weapons fast enough to meet rising demand amid the conflict with Iran.
Executives from Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon's parent company), Northrop Grumman, Boeing, BAE Systems, Honeywell Aerospace and L3Harris Technologies on Friday met with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss expanding weapons production and strengthening the defense industrial base.
The meeting comes as U.S. strikes against Iran have consumed large quantities of missiles and precision-guided munitions and other weapons, and the administration wants industry to accelerate production to refill inventories. Officials are preparing a supplemental defense request of roughly $50 billion aimed in part at replenishing stockpiles.
The issue carries implications beyond missiles. Several segments of the missile industrial base overlap directly with the space sector because ballistic missiles, interceptors and launch vehicles rely on many of the same technologies and suppliers. The most significant intersections fall into propulsion, radiation-hardened electronics and specialized sensor supply chains.
The propulsion challenge
Solid rocket motors are used in strategic missiles and interceptors, and the U.S. industrial base for large solid motors is concentrated among a small number of suppliers, particularly Northrop Grumman and L3Harris. Capacity limits in those production lines can ripple across missile programs and space launch systems.
Pentagon officials say steps are already underway to expand that capacity. During a House Armed Services Committee hearing March 4, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment Michael Duffey laid out a number of efforts to boost production of solid rocket motors.
He highlighted a $1 billion investment in L3Harris the Pentagon announced in January, a convertible preferred equity investment in the company's Missile Solutions business which Duffey said "is the first of its kind and will significantly increase our domestic capacity."
Separately, Duffey said that since January 2025 the Pentagon has invested $149 million in Defense Production Act funds in various firms to expand the solid rocket motor industrial base. The reconciliation spending bill passed last summer also directs funding to address "acute industrial chokepoints," including $250 million tied to solid rocket motor production.
Even so, analysts say the demand created by recent operations could be larger than what has been publicly disclosed.
"Hundreds and hundreds of missile defense interceptors were employed last summer," said Tom Karako, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the June 2025 operation when the U.S. attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran. "I'm kind of dreading finding out what the number is that we've done over this past week. I suspect it's going to be an uncomfortably big number," Karako said, referring to the latest airstrikes against Iran.
Combined demands of recent conflicts
The Ukraine conflict and the engagements in the Red Sea in the Middle East over the past couple of years, Karako said, have "really driven home that, oops, our estimates of what our inventories need to be for our various contingencies are dramatically too low."
That reassessment could translate into significantly higher spending. Even a $50 billion supplemental emergency appropriation might not be sufficient, he said. "I think it's going to be imperative to get a big supplemental, and by big supplemental, I mean triple digit billions."
Still, how quickly industry can respond remains uncertain, Karako said.
Industry groups say the supply chain challenges run deeper than a single surge in demand.
The environment in which the industry operates today is "one of the most challenging in U.S. history," Eric Fanning, the chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association, told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing Feb. 26.
"While American-made weapons remain effective, these conflicts have shined a light on the fragility of supply chains, which are still recovering from pandemic-driven disruptions and other economic challenges," Fanning said.
"During the last five years, we have seen supply chains break, company and DOD purchasing power eroded by record inflation, and significant increases in labor cost, which harms the recruitment and retention of qualified workers, while major wars in the Middle East and Europe are consuming stocks at alarming rates."
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