Odin Energetics tests drone-bomb formulation it says is 30% more powerful

Odin Energetics tests drone explosive it says is 30% more powerful

• Odin Energetics is testing a drone-bomb explosive that the startup says is 30% more powerful than what the military now packs onto drones.
• The Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance initiative aims to amass an arsenal of low-cost drones by the end of 2027.
• The Pentagon recently committed to buy 60,000 attack drones, virtually all designed to carry explosives, a department official said.
• For decades the military used smaller numbers of expensive weapons systems, fired infrequently for surgical strikes; attack drones now often operate in large numbers designed to overwhelm defenses.
• The Holston Army Ammunition Plant produces about 3% of its 1944 peak output, according to research by Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments fellow Tyler Hacker.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that the Army is discussing advanced explosives with Odin Energetics as the Pentagon expands attack-drone procurement.

Army discusses advanced explosives with startup as Holston modernization slips

Odin Energetics tested a new explosive for drone-sized bombs at a range just over an hour outside Houston, where engineers placed the material on pedestals and remotely detonated it, producing an echoing bang, a quick burst of flames and clouds of smoke. The startup says the formulation is 30% more powerful than what the military now packs onto drones. Odin executives said more energy-dense explosives like the tested formulation could increase the damage inflicted by smaller weapons and allow a drone to destroy a target even if its aim was slightly askew.

The demand behind that test runs through a shift in how the armed services fight. The U.S. military plans to buy millions of drones in the coming years as it adapts to modern warfare, and a chronic shortage of explosives threatens the Pentagon’s plans to replenish weapons stockpiles and arm troops with the unmanned systems that have come to define conflicts. The Pentagon’s Drone Dominance initiative is a $1.1 billion effort to amass an arsenal of low-cost drones by the end of 2027. Of the 60,000 attack drones the program recently committed to buy, virtually all are designed to carry explosives, a department official said.

The scale of use has changed with the procurement. For decades, the military has used smaller numbers of expensive weapons systems that were fired infrequently, even in training; the focus was on surgical strikes, using a limited number of munitions. Attack drones, in contrast, often operate in large numbers designed to overwhelm defenses. “There’s this whole new way of warfare that was never budgeted for from a manufacturing perspective,” said Brian Davis, co-founder of Odin.

Wars are drawing down what little stock exists. The Wall Street Journal reported that the war in Ukraine is consuming much of Europe’s supply and the war with Iran has drawn down much of the limited stock available in the United States. The shortage has further complicated U.S. efforts to prepare for a potential conflict with China by restocking reserves and becoming more self-reliant for all parts of the weapons-supply chain. Imports offer limited relief: explosives that used to come from European suppliers are now being rerouted to Ukraine, or nations are holding on to them for their own rearming efforts. The U.S. at one time purchased ingredients for energetics from Russia and China, but many of those exports have been restricted.

Explosives are part of a broader class of energy-releasing compounds called energetics, which also include propellants and other incendiaries. The Wall Street Journal said the compounds help weapons travel farther and faster and deliver greater force at the target. The materials are used in mining, oil drilling, construction and other industries as well as weapons, and they are essential to the Trump administration’s effort to onshore critical-minerals production. “It doesn’t matter what kind of conflict it is, whether it is big or small—energetics are at the center of every weapons system that the military has, and that’s where the urgency of the problem comes from,” said Tyler Hacker, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The country’s domestic explosives supply has fallen sharply since World War II, leaving a small number of suppliers carrying heavy loads and an industrial base that in substantial part dates to the 1940s. The United States rapidly built up a domestic supply during World War II. Following the widespread closures of government-owned plants in the 1990s, the entire production of the powerful explosives HMX and RDX came from a single supplier, the Holston Army Ammunition Plant. The 84-year-old plant makes about 3% of what it did during peak production in 1944, according to Hacker’s research. Industry experts said there is a one- to two-year wait for products coming out of Holston, which has experienced explosions and pollution violations. BAE Systems, the defense contractor that operates the plant, referred questions to the Army.

Holston received a $1 billion modernization investment from the Army, which owns the plant, but the timeline for the upgrades has slipped from 2025 to 2029 or beyond. Army spokeswoman Ellen Lovett said the timeline shifted to ensure safety and technical standards were being met, and the service is proceeding with safety and other improvements.

The Pentagon has begun trying to expand that supply. In March, the Army announced a $903 million research facility in Kentucky that will aim to boost production of HMX and RDX before 2031. The Pentagon launched a new office dedicated to energetics production and created a panel tasked with doubling the nation’s supply of key weapons, including the explosives that power them. The Wall Street Journal said the Pentagon’s effort to surge energetics production has created an opening for venture capital and startups to step in.

Odin Energetics is that opening in practice: a joint venture, announced this month, between Solugen, a chemicals company in which billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is the largest investor, and Kraken Kinetics, a bootstrapped startup that builds the warheads, fusing and other parts required to strap a bomb to a drone. The two companies committed $115 million to get Odin started. “We are not suddenly in an energetics crisis. We have actually been in an energetics crisis for 20 years,” said Davis, who is chief executive of Kraken Kinetics.

Odin does its production in modular factories that can be built in six months and set up wherever the weapons are needed — battlefields, military bases or test sites. That distribution answers a problem the explosives industry has faced for years: communities object to having a bomb factory nearby. Odin executives said the on-demand manufacturing model eliminates much of the risk that comes with storing bulk quantities of flammable substances, a risk older factories have carried for decades, including explosions and other safety incidents that have killed workers and taken plants offline for months.

The chemistry is designed to be shipped rather than stored in bulk. Sean Hunt, co-founder of Solugen and Odin, said the precursor chemicals, which are only as flammable as sugar, are transported from Solugen to Odin using standard trucks. Only after those “boring white powders” reach Odin do they undergo the chemical reaction that creates the explosive. Odin said it currently has the ability to produce close to a 10th of the roughly 11 million pounds of HMX and RDX explosives Holston produces in a year. The Office of Strategic Capital, a Pentagon lending office, has had conversations with Odin about possible funding, company executives said.

The Army, which is looking to bring energetics production onto its bases, is in discussions with Odin about providing the service with advanced explosives. Odin said it can start supplying the military in small quantities next year.