Excellent start to the year for the multinational Mbda (France, United Kingdom and Italy) which concluded the acquisition of 50% of the company Roxel which is held by Safran, thus integrating the company into its group. Roxel it will maintain its status as an autonomous company and will continue to operate on its markets starting from France and England, where it concentrates the majority of its activities for other system suppliers and at the same time develops new markets, in particular the export market. Roxel it is in fact a Franco-British company born from the merger of Celerg And Royal Ordnance Rocket Motors in 2003 and is a major global player in the design, development and production of solid fuel propulsion systems for all types of missiles, tactical and cruise rockets for air, naval and land forces.
Roxel It has four production sites (in the United Kingdom, in the New-Aquitaine region and two in the Centre-Val de Loire region), while its offices are located in the Paris region. The capabilities of Roxel they are therefore very important in the NATO context, also because more and more missile systems use this type of propulsion which has several advantages compared to liquid propellants. It works without the need for long preparations, is much easier to store and manage and has a high efficiency which translates into compact dimensions of the tanks that contain it, typically in granular form. These characteristics, combined with the low cost, make solid rockets also suitable for space launchers. Liquid fuels are still used in large missiles, but this, especially when it comes to large and long-range ballistic carriers, presupposes a launch preparation that is discovered by the enemy and thus allows the defenses to be alerted. This does not happen with solid propellants, and this is why research into allowing their use even on large rockets is of great importance. Fun fact: it was the Chinese of the Song Dynasty, in the medieval era, who invented a solid fuel rocket, which was described in the Chinese military treatise Huolongjing of the writer and philosopher of the Ming dynasty Jiao Yufrom which it is clear that the Chinese in 1232 used proto-rockets called “fire arrows” to repel the Mongols during the siege of Kaifeng.
The CEO of Mbda, Eric Bérangersaid: “I want to welcome all my colleagues at Roxel in our group. This operation aims to strengthen interactions and cooperation between the teams of the two companies; the agreement supports the operational and industrial excellence of the leading solid propulsion engine company. It also aims to provide an even more optimal response to the growing challenges posed by the war economy context, both in development and production.” His colleague Sylvie GrisonCEO of Roxeladded: “This acquisition will allow us to further develop innovation in new solid propulsion technologies. Furthermore, the integration will simplify the optimization of industrial cycles, making them faster. I am therefore very pleased that this acquisition has been completed.”
