Secretary Hegseth visits Rocket Lab and Divergent

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth visited Rocket Lab and Divergent Technologies in California this week, underscoring the increasing importance of advanced manufacturing in defense and aerospace production. The stops were part of Hegseth’s Arsenal of Freedom tour, which highlights American companies strengthening defense readiness through industrial innovation.

During his visit to Rocket Lab’s Engine Development Complex in Long Beach, California, Hegseth reviewed the company’s propulsion and spacecraft manufacturing operations. Rocket Lab emphasized that “space superiority doesn’t start on orbit – it starts on the factory floor,” pointing to its investment in domestic production as a foundation for national security. The company highlighted its capacity to build and deliver rockets and spacecraft at a pace and scale aligned with defense needs.

Since its founding, Rocket Lab has used additive manufacturing as a core part of its propulsion strategy, producing a large share of its rocket engine components through metal 3D printing. The company’s Rutherford engine, which powers the Electron rocket, relies heavily on additively manufactured parts, including the combustion chamber, injector, and turbopump components, enabling rapid iteration and tight integration of complex geometries. Rocket Lab extended this approach with Archimedes, the larger engine developed for its Neutron rocket, where additive manufacturing is used to support higher thrust requirements while reducing part count, production time, and cost compared with conventional manufacturing methods.

In Los Angeles, Hegseth toured Divergent Technologies, which develops the DAPS modular additive manufacturing systems for high-performance aerospace and defense components. Divergent showcased the efficient and flexible design of its platform, which enables rapid manufacturing for next-generation systems. The company described its approach as delivering “real capability at speed, at scale, and with the performance demanded by next-generation aerospace and defense systems.”

The Pentagon has sharply increased funding for additive manufacturing, viewing it as a transformative capability for defense production. In fiscal year 2024, the Department of Defense earmarked approximately $800 million for AM—a 166% rise over the previous year. That figure is expected to grow to about $3.3 billion by fiscal 2026, according to the department’s budget request. Though still a small share of the more than $100 billion research, development, test, and evaluation budget, the surge reflects the military’s interest in using 3D printing to produce parts on demand, ease supply chain bottlenecks, reduce foreign dependencies, and accelerate design iteration.

Rocket Lab and Divergent have made additive manufacturing central to their operations, aligning their capabilities with the War Department’s broader modernization and industrial resilience goals.