Anduril’s real war is with himself

One lesson on wrangling equipment arrived within months. A recently hired maintenance technician, trying to clean a fairly new device, unplugged part of it before turning off the power, a clear lapse in what should have been protocol, two people say. Aluminum powder flew onto people’s hair and coats. No one was hurt, but larger inhalations could have caused breathing problems.

Not long after that, another big moment became bittersweet. On July 1, construction crews turned over the keys to Roberto’s, the mass production center for McHenry rocket engines. Two people say a group of site leaders had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings that night to celebrate the milestone. But there was some concern about the road ahead. The two people say it will take 28 days to produce a solid rocket motor at Roberto. But Anduril was scheduled to get the first of a few inert — or non-explosive — engines from Roberto just three days later.

The morning after the dinner, on July 2, the production chief was released and escorted out of the McHenry compound, two people say. Minutes later, a senior manager on the same team resigned, leaving his phone and badge with the security officer.

Executives, including Keith Flynn, a former Tesla director and Anduril’s senior vice president of manufacturing, introduced a new system, but problems continued. In late July, machines from supplier Coperion — intended to automate the chemical dosing process for propellants — began bleeding, several people say. When the emergency stop buttons did not work, an inert chemical was spread on the floor. No one was hurt, but the machines were inoperable until safety and quality were guaranteed.

Representatives of Anduril and Coperion met daily for weeks on sometimes heated Zoom calls to try to resolve issues. Cooperion has long warned that its devices were not used for this application, three people say. A former Anduril employee says they “don’t know of anyone who would want to use” this type of machine for “energetics,” referring to combustible chemicals. “I understand they make good dog food,” the person says. Cooperion declined to comment on this story.

Anduril’s president Chief Strategy Officer Christian Bruce He said The startup prioritizes products that can be reliably assembled in large quantities. But in Atlanta, three people say, components like the Altius wing sometimes come out of assembly incorrectly or malfunctioning due to complex designs. At least two workers say they are upset by the use of 3D printing and carbon fiber at the expense of traditional techniques and reliable materials. One person described the company’s “mentality” as “knowing better than its predecessors.”

In at least four separate military tests last year, Anduril Systemsincluding two Altius drones, failed to perform as expected, The Guardian reports. The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. At the time, executives said the goal of the testing was to identify problems: Anduril’s guiding philosophy was to fail fast.

But some Atlanta workers offer mixed views on the company’s testing operations as of last year. For example, the pressure to constantly test Altius in a makeshift room at the factory, on a farm in Georgia, and in the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas sometimes meant that data from the previous trial had not been processed by the time of the next trial, a former worker says. “You have all these amazing engineers working their butt off, and they’re frustrated because they can’t even learn from a test or take a breath,” the person says.