An Explosion Knocked Out Anduril’s Rocket Motor Test Site in Mississippi

一场爆炸摧毁了 Anduril 在密西西比州的火箭发动机测试场

A rocket motor exploded during a test at an Anduril facility in Mississippi last Friday, marking another setback in the startup’s hopes of becoming a major supplier of missile propulsion systems for the defense industry. Anduril publicly confirmed the incident after an inquiry from WIRED.

上周五，Anduril 位于密西西比州的一处设施在进行测试时，一台火箭发动机发生爆炸。对于这家希望成为国防工业导弹推进系统主要供应商的初创公司来说，这标志着其发展进程再次受挫。在接到《连线》（WIRED）杂志的问询后，Anduril 公开证实了这一事件。

No one was injured in the blast, which damaged Anduril’s testing stand, the company’s chief operating officer Matt Grimm said in a social media post on Tuesday hours after WIRED contacted the company about the incident.

Anduril 首席运营官 Matt Grimm 在《连线》杂志就此事联系公司数小时后，于周二在社交媒体上发文称，爆炸未造成人员伤亡，但损坏了公司的测试台。

Three people familiar with Anduril’s operations, who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation, tell WIRED that they can’t recall another time in the past few years when a similar test resulted in an explosion, and they were unaware of what may have caused last week’s mishap. The incident halted a key step in the prototype testing work that generates revenue for Anduril’s rocket motor unit, and rebuilding the setup could take up to a couple of months, one of the people says.

三位熟悉 Anduril 运营情况的人士在匿名讨论这一敏感局势时告诉《连线》，他们不记得过去几年中类似的测试曾导致过爆炸，也不清楚上周事故的原因。其中一人表示，此次事件中断了 Anduril 火箭发动机部门原型测试工作的关键环节，而重建测试设施可能需要长达数月的时间。

Grimm wrote in his post, which included photos of charred equipment, that Anduril expects to resume testing within weeks. “Anduril is continuing to build and test rocket motors weekly, and the production facility remains on schedule,” he said. “Disciplined iteration begets steady progress, and we’re already putting the pieces of our test stand back together for the next test.”

Grimm 在帖子中附上了烧焦设备的照片，并写道 Anduril 预计将在几周内恢复测试。“Anduril 每周都在持续制造和测试火箭发动机，生产设施的进度依然按计划进行，”他说道，“严谨的迭代带来稳步的进展，我们已经在重新组装测试台，为下一次测试做准备。”

Shannon Prior, an Anduril spokesperson, didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story beyond pointing to Grimm’s post.

Anduril 发言人 Shannon Prior 除了指向 Grimm 的帖子外，未对本文的置评请求作出回应。

Anduril planned to begin mass production of rocket motors on July 1, 2025, but a year later, it has not done so, four people familiar with the matter say, disputing Grimm’s contention that the effort is on schedule. A former Pentagon official who helped award a multimillion-dollar grant to Anduril previously told WIRED that he anticipated years of delays despite the company’s promises to deliver the complex technology on time. Solid rocket motor production in the US is largely controlled by just a couple of companies, leading to shortages that the Pentagon is trying to overcome by supporting startups.

四位知情人士表示，Anduril 原计划于 2025 年 7 月 1 日开始火箭发动机的量产，但一年过去了，这一目标尚未实现，这与 Grimm 关于项目进展顺利的说法相矛盾。一位曾协助向 Anduril 授予数百万美元拨款的前五角大楼官员此前告诉《连线》，尽管该公司承诺按时交付这项复杂技术，但他预计会出现多年的延误。美国的固体火箭发动机生产主要由少数几家公司控制，导致了五角大楼正试图通过支持初创企业来克服的供应短缺问题。

Anduril has been valued at $61 billion by investors and fulfilled billions of dollars in government contracts around the world by developing drones, submarines, and surveillance gear, but its rocket motor unit based in McHenry, Mississippi, has encountered repeated challenges. In March, WIRED reported about a series of safety and technology issues at the McHenry facility, including an employee accidentally burning his hand with an igniter and the purchase of costly equipment that failed to perform as intended.

Anduril 的估值已达 610 亿美元，通过开发无人机、潜艇和监控设备，在全球范围内完成了数十亿美元的政府合同。然而，其位于密西西比州麦克亨利的火箭发动机部门却屡遭挑战。今年 3 月，《连线》报道了麦克亨利设施存在的一系列安全和技术问题，包括一名员工被点火器意外烧伤手部，以及购买的昂贵设备未能达到预期性能。

On social media, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey framed some of the incidents described in WIRED’s earlier reporting as “whining about … inane stuff.” The company’s chairman, Trae Stephens, wrote in a separate post that Anduril is “scaling faster than anyone in this industry” and “fixing problems as we find them.”

在社交媒体上，Anduril 创始人 Palmer Luckey 将《连线》早期报道中描述的一些事件形容为“对……无聊琐事的抱怨”。公司董事长 Trae Stephens 在另一篇帖子中写道，Anduril 是“业内扩张速度最快的公司”，并且“在发现问题时会立即修复”。

Before it can begin mass-producing rocket motors in McHenry, Anduril has been generating revenue by designing, building, and testing prototype motors for customers such as the US Navy. That business earned the company tens of millions of dollars in revenue last year, according to a person familiar with the figure. Even critics of the unit say the testing business has done well. After the prototypes are built, Anduril measures how well the designs perform, including the amount of time the propellant burns. Customers get the data to inform their plans. That work may now be held up.

在麦克亨利开始量产火箭发动机之前，Anduril 一直通过为美国海军等客户设计、制造和测试原型发动机来创造收入。据一位知情人士透露，该业务去年为公司带来了数千万美元的收入。即使是该部门的批评者也承认，测试业务表现良好。原型机制造完成后，Anduril 会测量设计的性能，包括推进剂的燃烧时间。客户利用这些数据来制定计划。而现在，这项工作可能会被搁置。

Mass production may not begin for another year, two people say. After WIRED’s report in March, Anduril executives such as Grimm offered to give the rocket motor unit whatever resources it needed to get going, one of the people says. Ultimately, in April, the team decided to move struggling equipment into storage and start putting together a new setup for mass production that will require a greater amount of manual labor, according to another person.

两人表示，量产可能还要再等一年才能开始。其中一人称，在《连线》3 月份的报道之后，Grimm 等 Anduril 高管曾表示愿意为火箭发动机部门提供任何所需的资源以推动进展。据另一位人士透露，最终在 4 月份，团队决定将表现不佳的设备存入仓库，并开始组装一套需要更多人工操作的全新量产装置。

“It’s a hot mess,” says the same source. “They completely gutted the building and started from scratch what they had spent three years developing.”

“这简直是一团糟，”同一消息来源说，“他们彻底清空了厂房，把自己花了三年时间开发的东西推倒重来。”

Anduril got into the rocket motor business in 2023 when it acquired the defense startup Adranos, which originally established the facility in McHenry. By then, the site had already experienced a series of technical and construction problems. In 2021, a fire caused partly by improper waste disposal melted the aluminum wall of one building, according to a person familiar with the incident. In the following years, several people say that parts of other buildings and setups had to be rebuilt because of construction errors. This year, the company put off plans to buy new equipment for its in-house machining shop, which cuts and shapes raw materials, and invested the funds instead in correcting issues elsewhere, one of the people says.

Anduril 于 2023 年收购了国防初创公司 Adranos 后进入火箭发动机领域，而 Adranos 最初建立了麦克亨利设施。到那时，该基地已经历了一系列技术和施工问题。据一位知情人士透露，2021 年，部分由于废物处理不当引发的一场火灾熔化了一栋建筑的铝墙。此后几年，多位人士表示，由于施工错误，其他建筑和设施的部分区域不得不重建。其中一人称，今年公司推迟了为其内部机械加工车间（负责切割和成型原材料）购买新设备的计划，转而将资金投入到纠正其他地方的问题上。

The strategy shifts, production delays, and recent loss of perks such as free lunches and snacks have contributed to declining morale and several employee departures at the McHenry site, several people familiar with the matter say. Anduril has been steadily bringing in new recruits and, according to a public job listing, is searching for a new head of production in McHenry for at least the second time in a year, who will be tasked with shaping one of the company’s “most mission-critical business lines.”

多位知情人士表示，战略调整、生产延误以及近期免费午餐和零食等福利的取消，导致麦克亨利基地的士气下降，并有多名员工离职。Anduril 一直在稳步招聘新员工，根据公开的招聘信息，该公司正在一年内至少第二次为麦克亨利寻找新的生产主管，该职位将负责塑造公司“最关键的任务业务线”之一。