Jane Edwards
American Pacific has invested an undisclosed sum in space propulsion company Frontier Aerospace as part of efforts to better support the needs of space launch industry clients.
"With our investment in Frontier, we now have a strategic partner in next-generation, in-space liquid propulsion technology," American Pacific CEO Hal Murdock said in a statement published Tuesday.
Frontier Aerospace is a Simi Valley, California-based company founded by Jim McKinnon in 1997 and is focused on providing space propulsion services and products for use in defense, deep space, space transportation, Earth observation satellites, lunar landers and collision avoidance applications. The company's propulsion systems are expected to power two lunar landers being developed under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
The minority investment in Frontier marks the first investment made by American Pacific, which was acquired by private equity firm AE Industrial Partners in February 2020. Cedar City, Utah-based American Pacific manufactures specialty chemicals for space, defense, aerospace and fire protection industries.
"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," said Kirk Konert, a partner at AEI.
Kirkland & Ellis advised American Pacific on the transaction's legal aspect. Polsinelli acted as legal counsel to Frontier.
