Brunswick, ME — [Feb 3, 2026] — bluShift Aerospace today announced a major strategic shift and technology milestone aimed at addressing a rapidly escalating challenge for the United States: the widening gap between national demand for rocket booster propulsion and the limited domestic capacity to supply it. This shortfall is increasingly affecting defense programs, hypersonic testing, and commercial aerospace development, creating an urgent need for new, scalable, and novel propulsion solutions.

After years of development, bluShift has introduced a new class of clean, non‑toxic, domestically sourced rocket boosters designed to replace traditional solid rocket motors – a market now strained by backlogs, supply‑chain fragility, and escalating geopolitical risk.

“The U.S. is dangerously behind in solid rocket motor propulsion capacity and development of hypersonics, and our foreign competitors are out‑testing us by orders of magnitude,” said Sascha Deri, CEO of bluShift Aerospace. “We built a propulsion technology whose time has arrived. It’s safer to manufacture, uses non-toxic propellants, dramatically cheaper to produce, and sourced entirely from materials available here in the U.S.”

A New Propulsion Model

For decades, the aerospace industry has relied on toxic, expensive solid fuels and globalized supply chains vulnerable to disruption. bluShift’s new booster line is engineered to break that dependency.

The company’s innovation is powered by two proprietary technologies:

• A patent‑pending oxidizer system offering high performance with precise throttle control

• A trade‑secret, high‑performance bio‑derived fuel sourced from an effectively unlimited domestic supply

Together, they deliver a propulsion solution that is:

• Non‑toxic and safe to handle

• Half the cost of traditional solid rocket motors

• 1/10th the Capital Cost to Scale for Manufacturing

• Free from geopolitical supply‑chain exposure

“We’ve removed the supply chain risk from propulsion,” said Deri. “That changes the economics and the security calculus for the entire sector.”

18 Months of Technical Progress

bluShift’s propulsion platform is backed by a series of major technical milestones achieved over the past year and a half, demonstrating readiness for commercial and defense deployment:

• Completed full‑duration engine tests showing sufficient performance to boost the company’s suborbital research rocket, Starless Rogue, to space.

• Demonstrated engine throttling, a capability essentially nonexistent in solid rocket motors today, enabling optimized flight profiles for hypersonic testing and detection.

• Delivered a >$1M Air Force contract advancing bluShift’s MAREVL engine as a next‑generation replacement for legacy strap‑on solid rocket boosters.

• Filed a patent for a novel system that further enhances oxidizer performance.

• Completed vacuum testing of the ignition system, validating the propulsion architecture for in‑space operation.

• Developed a low‑cost fuel production system requiring under $15,000 in equipment - compared to the millions typically required for solid‑fuel manufacturing.

These milestones collectively demonstrate a propulsion technology that is not only innovative, but validated and ready for national‑level commercialization.

A Domestic Solution to a National Security Gap

The U.S. propulsion shortfall has become a defining challenge for defense readiness and hypersonic development. bluShift’s technology directly addresses that gap with a scalable, American‑made alternative.

“We’re rewriting the economics of propulsion at the exact moment the country needs it most,” said Deri. “This is about restoring U.S. leadership and scale in aerospace.”

About bluShift Aerospace

bluShift Aerospace is an American propulsion company developing clean, affordable, domestically sourced rocket engines and boosters for defense, commercial aerospace, and research markets. Founded on the belief that space access and propulsion should be sustainable, safe, and economically viable, bluShift is pioneering a new generation of affordable, safer and scalable rocket technologies designed to meet the nation’s most urgent aerospace needs.