Cambium Advances Thermal Protection Systems for Hypersonics with the US Navy

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., April 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Cambium, a leader in advanced materials innovation, is taking its hypersonics-ready product portfolio to the next level through a contract with the US Navy. We are optimizing the processing and production of our phthalonitrile material systems to ensure that they continue to deliver on their potential to massively reduce the cost and time needed to produce hypersonics-ready parts by around 70%.  

Cambium's AI-driven material discovery and development platform enables us to more rapidly and cost-effectively produce hypersonic-ready products through a domestic supply chain. Our phthalonitrile material systems deliver not just performance but also unprecedented production speed and capacity to the U.S. Department of Defense and Program of Record prime contractors and subcontractors—two of the highest priorities in U.S. defense today.

Cambium is working with a sense of urgency to optimize these systems in its contract with the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR), to create a secure domestic supply for hypersonics by significantly reducing lead times and cost roadblocks. Cambium's phthalonitrile-based high-temperature composite materials address key adoption issues in processing and production that were thought to be insurmountable. As a result, no company has been willing to take on the risks of solving these issues. And, consequently, the defense industrial base has not had access to—until now—phthalonitrile-based products from which to build the carbon-carbon parts needed that are capable of surviving and performing in the extreme conditions that structures encounter at hypersonic speeds up to Mach-20.

"The U.S. must establish a secure, scalable supply chain for advanced materials to support hypersonic systems at speed and scale," said Simon Waddington, Cambium's Co-founder and CEO. "Cambium is tackling this challenge head-on, developing next-generation thermal protection systems that are not only high-performing but also cost-effective and domestically manufactured. This Navy contract is another step forward in our mission to deliver cutting-edge materials solutions that strengthen national security and technological leadership."

About Cambium

We are a radically different advanced materials company. Our goal is to be a world-leader in the development and production of advanced materials for defense and dual-use applications, products that enhance survivability for personnel and systems. Our innovations arise from the challenges faced by the military across land, air, sea and space, for example protecting payloads during hypersonic flight and shielding sensors and human eyesight from laser attacks. Cambium's first-of-its-kind advanced material development platform molecularly re-engineers polymers from first principles for exceptional performance, survivability and manufacturability using a suite of computational methods combined with state-of-the-art materials science, chemistry and biology. We manufacture products in a secure domestic supply chain using flexible production systems that offer defense customers and other innovators the speed and flexibility to develop critical products. Please visit cambium-usa.com.

For more information, contact Stephan Herrera, Co-founder, Chief Marketing Officer & Head of Government Affairs at [email protected]

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SOURCE Cambium Biomaterials, Inc