Defense Tech Signals is back after a few weeks off.

In case you missed the year end wrap and Market Map, check it out here: 2025 Year in Review

This week we, were looking at a company developing new materials for high temperature and hypersonic applications: Cambium.

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Cambium Biomaterials is an advanced materials company applying AI-driven molecular design and vertically integrated, domestic manufacturing to produce high-temperature composites, thermal protection systems, and laser-protective optics for defense and aerospace applications.

What differentiates Cambium is not materials performance in isolation, but its ability to shorten the path from validated military requirement to producible hardware, an increasingly binding constraint in hypersonic and directed-energy programs.

Cambium was founded in 2020 following early collaboration with the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at NAWCWD China Lake on bio-based thermal protection materials. CEO Simon Waddington, a repeat biotech and advanced manufacturing entrepreneur, partnered with Stephan Herrera, whose background centers on defense-sector strategy and government engagement.

Advanced materials can be formulated in months, yet routinely take years to reach flight relevance due to fragmented transitions between R&D labs, suppliers, and certified manufacturers. Cambium’s response was to build an AI-driven discovery platform directly coupled to in-house, aerospace-qualified manufacturing in order to collapse iteration cycles and de-risk production earlier.

Early demonstrations led to expanded Navy and DARPA engagement and in December 2025, Cambium reinforced this strategy by acquiring SHD Group, a UK-based composites manufacturer with AS9100-certified facilities across the U.S., UK, and EU.

ApexShield 1000 is a phthalonitrile-based resin system designed to address a known choke point in hypersonic vehicle production. Phthalonitriles, originally developed by the Naval Research Laboratory, exhibit exceptional thermal stability, fire resistance, and low water absorption, properties critical for extreme-environment applications.

The primary use case is thermal protection systems for hypersonic vehicles such as the Common Hypersonic Glide Body, which experience prolonged thermal soak at extreme velocities. Cambium’s materials are engineered to function as both ablative layers and structural components, reducing system complexity while accelerating production.

Beyond structural skins, Cambium is developing high-temperature foams and adhesives. Work with Checkerspot on PFAS-free, fire-resistant foams aligns with DoD mandates to remove toxic materials without compromising shipboard and aircraft fire safety.

The defining technical challenge of the mid-2020s aerospace sector is set to be thermal management at extreme velocity. Once vehicles exceed Mach 5, aerodynamic friction generates plasma sheaths and surface temperatures that push beyond the structural limits of traditional titanium alloys and epoxy-based composites (see Top Gun: Maverick)

The incumbent supply chain for thermal protection systems relies on carbon–carbon composites produced through repeated cycles which is an effective but inherently slow process.  The inability to surge production of hypersonic glide bodies, scramjet components, and rocket motor structures is becoming a binding constraint on readiness.

These constraints will not remain confined to hypersonics. The same dynamics apply to space re-entry systems, directed-energy survivability, and autonomous platforms operating near thermal limits.

Hypersonics are less the end state than the forcing function exposing where legacy materials pipelines fail.

This is where Cambium’s acquisition of SHD becomes existential rather than opportunistic. Owning certified prepreg and composites manufacturing across the U.S., UK, and EU gives the company a path to demonstrate repeatability, yield control, and throughput under real operating conditions.

If Cambium’s discovery-to-manufacturing model proves durable, it points toward a shift in how materials programs are evaluated: away from peak performance and toward cycle time, surge capacity, and supply-chain resilience.

The global hypersonic weapons market is projected to grow at double-digit rates through the next decade. Escalating great-power competition, rapid proliferation, including advances by North Korea and India, and repeated setbacks in incumbent programs have made speed and manufacturability as decisive as raw performance.

For Cambium, the central question over the next two years is whether the company can help the Department of Defense change how critical materials are qualified and fielded; shifting evaluation away from peak performance and toward cycle time, surge capacity, and production confidence.

In an era where time is the scarcest resource, the companies that ultimately matter will not be those with the most advanced chemistry, but those that can reliably convert chemistry into qualified hardware at scale.