US Army awards Continuous Composites multi-year contract for CF3D missile component production
Hardware
Originally reported by The Defense Post
Continuous Composites has secured a multi-year contract with the US Army, executed through America Makes under the Manufacturing Technology program, to evaluate its CF3D composite additive manufacturing process for producing next-generation missile components. The work, led by the US Army DEVCOM Aviation and Missile Center, will focus on components including nose cones, fins, leading edges, and bulkheads - structures that traditionally rely on labor-intensive fabrication methods. CEO Steve Starner stated the goal is to lower program risk and position the Department of Defense for confident, scalable production. The contract aligns with a broader US push to expand missile production capacity, including RTX's $100 million Raytheon facility expansion and Leidos' $2.7 billion hypersonic weapons transition contract.
This contract represents a meaningful step for composite AM in defense production, moving beyond prototyping into structured qualification pathways for flight-critical structures. Continuous Composites' CF3D technology enables fiber-steered designs and automated fabrication of high-performance composite parts, addressing a persistent gap in the defense supply chain: the slow, expensive manual layup processes that constrain missile production rates. The company sits at the intersection of two accelerating trends - the US defense sector's politically driven push to expand domestic production capacity and the broader AM industry's shift from machine theater to repeatable factory processes. The involvement of America Makes as execution partner signals that the Army is treating this as a structured qualification program, not a one-off demonstration.
For Continuous Composites, the critical execution challenge is moving from successful demonstrations to production-rate qualification - the same aerospace qualification grind that has defined AM's defense trajectory for years. The company must demonstrate that CF3D can deliver consistent mechanical properties across production runs, not just in lab conditions. For the broader AM industry, this contract reinforces that composite AM is gaining traction in defense applications where speed and scalability are now explicit constraints, but the path to production remains measured in years, not quarters.
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