{"id":70886,"date":"2025-08-05T12:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T12:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/08\/05\/l3harris-opens-rocket-motor-plant-already-producing-parts\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:21:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:21:33","slug":"l3harris-opens-rocket-motor-plant-already-producing-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2025\/08\/05\/l3harris-opens-rocket-motor-plant-already-producing-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"L3Harris opens rocket motor plant, already producing parts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. \u2013 L3Harris Technologies\u2019 Aerojet Rocketdyne<\/a> officially opened a new and expansive rocket motor parts plant in Huntsville, Alabama, in a ceremony Monday, which marks another clear step in the defense industrial base\u2019s work to drastically increase production capacity for munitions in the U.S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With some machines already installed across the periphery of the vast, but still empty floorspace, the Advanced Manufacturing Facility \u2013 South (AMF-South) is poised to surge production of inert parts for solid rocket motors in a facility the size of six football fields (roughly 379,000 square feet). These parts include components like cases, nozzles, exit cones and aft closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within 24 months of L3Harris acquiring Aerojet Rocketdyne, it invested over $20 million to bring the facility to life and additional funding from a Defense Production Act agreement helped pay for additional equipment and tooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement between the company and the U.S. government is to increase rocket propulsion manufacturing capacity in the continental U.S. to keep pace with the rising global demand for tactical and strategic missile production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new facility has already begun to build parts for the Standard Missile, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System and the Javelin antitank weapon and plans to expand to other programs requiring solid rocket motors in the future, Scott Alexander, L3Harris\u2019 missile solutions president, said at the event. The plan is to continue to add capability to the floorspace as demand increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the company has already hired 40 manufacturing employees, there is a plan to bring on another hundred in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new facility comes in addition to the company\u2019s 136,00 square foot Advanced Manufacturing Facility in Northern, Huntsville, dubbed AMF-North. Opened in 2019, it covers the production of inert parts for larger solid rocket motors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to L3Harris\u2019 Huntsville expansion, it is also rapidly building out large manufacturing facilities in Camden, Arkansas<\/a>, and Orange County, Virginia.,<\/a> to cover the entire gamut of solid rocket motor production.<\/p>\n\n\n\t