Rocket engine maker Ursa Major just handed the controls to a new boss, and the Denver region’s space sector is watching closely to see how fast he can push the throttle.
The Berthoud-based propulsion company promoted Chris Spagnoletti to chief executive on Thursday, elevating a 30-year aerospace veteran as it accelerates its production push across Colorado. The move puts an internal operations leader in charge while the firm ramps up rocket motor manufacturing and prepares a new 400-acre test site north of the Denver metro area.
The leadership shuffle was first reported by the Denver Business Journal, which highlighted Spagnoletti’s long tenure in aerospace and Ursa Major’s drive toward larger-scale production. The outlet noted that Spagnoletti joined Ursa Major in 2022 and had been leading the company’s liquid systems business before the promotion, framing the move as an internal handoff timed with a companywide scale-up.
“I’m honored to serve as CEO as we continue delivering critical capabilities to our customers at speed and scale,” Spagnoletti said in a company press release. Ursa Major said the board unanimously promoted him and that he will succeed Dan Jablonsky, who is departing after leading the company through a recent growth phase.
400 acre test site and capacity build out
The timing is not subtle. Ursa Major is in the middle of a physical and operational expansion, including a new 400-acre solid rocket motor test and qualification site in Weld County, intended for full-scale static firings and qualification work. The expansion was announced through PR Newswire, and company materials say the site will allow testing and qualification of larger solid rocket motors to support missile and hypersonic programs.
In other words, there is a lot of hardware on the way, and someone has to prove it all works.
New team to steer the production ramp
To match that growing test capacity, Ursa Major has been quietly beefing up its management bench and shifting toward higher-rate production. In a Feb. 4 company announcement from Ursa Major, the firm named Jason Meredith president of Solid Missile Systems and Justin Siebert chief operating officer as part of a push to scale manufacturing and hit production targets. Company officials say those hires, together with recent program awards, provide the operational backbone for the planned scale-up.
Aviation Week described the CEO switch as a surprise, and the industry will be watching whether Spagnoletti can turn expanded test capacity and a retooled leadership team into reliable production and on-time deliveries for defense and commercial customers. The runway is there; now the question is how fast Ursa Major can fly down it.
