American Pacific Corporation, a manufacturer of propulsion related materials for the aerospace, space and defense industries, has made a minority investment in Frontier Aerospace, a manufacturer in the space propulsion industry.
Frontier Aerospace marks American Pacific’s first investment since being acquired by AE Industrial Partners LP in 2020. California, Frontier provides end-to-end space propulsion services, from concept ideation to product development to design verification testing. Its products are used in defense, GEO/deep space applications, lunar landers, collision avoidance, space transportation, space tourism and earth observation satellites. Frontier’s propulsion systems are currently slated for two lunar landers as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission.
“With our investment in Frontier, we now have a strategic partner in next-generation, in-space liquid propulsion technology,” said Hal Murdock, CEO of American Pacific. “Jim and the Frontier team bring a strong space heritage and have a solid reputation for innovation, and we are proud to work together to better serve our launch industry customers.”
“With American Pacific’s investment, we gain additional resources to take advantage of the tremendous interest in today’s space industry, combined with the added benefit of their deep defense industry expertise,” commented Jim McKinnon, Frontier founder and president. “We also look forward to leveraging AEI’s relationships and intimate understanding of aerospace and defense’s unique challenges.”
“Guidance navigation and control and in-space propulsion are critical to the national defense and space industries, and we are pleased to have American Pacific partner with a company on the cutting edge of next-generation liquid propulsion technologies,” added Kirk Konert, a partner at AEI. “We’re excited about the possibilities that a partnership between two well-respected leaders can offer.”
Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor to American Pacific. Polsinelli served as legal advisor to Frontier.