By Richelle Stewart
There’s something life-changing about seeing a rocket launch from Earth, cutting a path through the atmosphere as it hurtles toward the stars – knowing you played a role in getting it there.
Arrowhead Products is a member of California’s world-class aerospace industry for as long as there’s been a national space program. We manufacture critical hardware that has been used on nearly every major NASA-based launch vehicle for over sixty years.
America’s path to the moon, Mars, and beyond has run directly through California for more than half a century. There are more than 500 businesses and manufacturers located here, dedicated to space-related machining, technology, design, and innovation. The aerospace industry contributes an estimated $35 billion annually to California’s GDP and supports more than 500,000 family-supporting jobs throughout the supply chain, according to California Business and Economic Development.
Today, Arrowhead Products is building the massive Core Stage propulsion feedlines for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). These vital components dump fuel into the rocket’s four RS-25 engines at a staggering rate of roughly 1,500 gallons per second during its intense 8.5-minute ascent. We also manufactured the high-precision propulsion lines on Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) Upper Stage on Artemis I and II.
The Artemis program will take human spaceflight further than it has ever gone.
However, American leadership in space isn’t guaranteed. Staying at the cutting edge of space innovation and exploration demands long-term commitment.
When Congress funds NASA through short-term resolutions or threatens programmatic pivots, the ripples devastate the supply chain. Critical aerospace components require months or years to procure and manufacture. Smaller vendors providing specialized raw materials face bankruptcy during funding lapses. When a lower-tier supplier goes under due to budget uncertainty, the entire national space program stalls.
Long-term budgetary commitments protect these fragile supply chain dynamics.
As the only rocket currently capable of sending the Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and heavy cargo to the moon in a single launch, SLS is at the center of the Artemis missions. Abandoning or underfunding this capability risks our national leadership in space.
While it is often viewed through the lens of deep-space exploration, the true engine of this program is the vast industrial supply chain in California and across the United States. This complicated, high-functioning engine cannot be turned on and off on a whim. It relies on resources companies cannot invest in without predictable multi-year contracts, highly specialized machinery, a technically trained workforce, and precise scheduling.
California boasts a booming aerospace economy that serves as a global hub of innovation. Aerospace manufacturing requires rare technical expertise that takes years to master. But this aerospace sector doesn’t just produce technology. It produces stability for thousands of working families. Our technicians, welders, engineers, and machinists earn wages that sustain households.
If funding for the SLS program and Artemis missions fluctuates, these highly skilled workers may leave the industry. Once this generational knowledge leaves the factory floor, it cannot be easily replaced. A stable budget guarantees that these family-supporting jobs remain anchored in California, giving the industry space to grow, expand, and innovate.
In turn, the technological breakthroughs born from the Artemis program directly strengthen America’s national defense and domestic commercial sectors. The advancements we’re developing in metallurgy, fluid dynamics, and extreme-environment engineering will eventually find their way into commercial aviation, clean energy, and national security systems.
We are currently in a global race to the lunar surface. Our competitors are investing heavily in permanent infrastructure on the moon. America’s absence or delay creates a vacuum that foreign adversaries will eagerly fill.
As Congress debates the future of federal spending, we urge our representatives to look beyond the immediate fiscal calendar. Don’t view NASA funding as an expense, but rather as a foundational investment in American industrial capacity, defense, and national security.
At Arrowhead, we look forward to seeing our components launch the next generation of explorers to the moon and Mars. To get there, we’ll need legislative certainty: a commitment to steady, multi-year appropriations for the Space Launch System and the Artemis program.
This will protect our supply chain, secure the blue-collar manufacturing jobs that pay for healthy, happy families, and keep America as the global leader in space.
Richelle Stewart is the Space Programs Director at Arrowhead Products in Los Alamitos, CA.