Headlines
CCAs + Hypersonics Enter Production. Manufacturing Tech Dominates
Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition.
CCAs and Low-Cost Hypersonics Enter Scaled Production
Drone Software Is the Weapon & Needs Guiding Principles
Manufacturing Tech Dominates Recent Investments from Casting to AM
New Application of DPA Authority & Lessons Learned on Frigate Acquisition
Army Stands up New Unit Focused on Autonomy and Drone Warfare
Navy Goes Big on Expeditionary Mine Warfare & Aligns S&T to Speed
Marine Corps Lands F-35s on Roads & Stands-Up Unmanned MX Squadron
Air Force Needs to Reinstate the A-10 Budget & Use Rivet Joint for Drones
Sustained Maneuver May Be the Key to Future Space Capabilities
Europe Rearms and May Be Gaining an Edge with Ukraine Adoption
We mourn the eight Airman who were lost in a B-52 crash at Edwards AFB.
We also mourn the loss of Josh Baer, co-founder of Capital Factory in Austin.
Air Force Orders Both General Atomics’ FQ-42 And Anduril’s FQ-44 Into Production
BLUF: The Air Force has awarded contracts for the production of General Atomics FQ-42A Dark Merlin and Anduril FQ-44A Fury drones. This sets the service up to operate a split initial fleet of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) Increment 1 drones.
Contracts were awarded four months early reflecting that the aircraft meet rigorous mission requirements and are ready for full-scale manufacturing.
A split-buy of Dark Merlin and Fury drones will help drive down risk.
The designs are also very different, which opens the door to more operational possibilities for the Air Force right from the start.
General Atomics and Anduril can also then focus on refining the respective strengths of their uncrewed aircraft.
The Air Force has stated a goal of fielding the first 100–150 CCAs by 2029.
Nearly $1 billion is in its FY27 budget request to expand procurement.
The Air Force is still planning for at least one more incremental CCA development cycle, or Increment 2, firm requirements for which have yet to be publicly released.
The Marine Corps and the Navy are also pursuing their own CCA fleets in very close coordination with the Air Force.
The Air Force has also further split the CCA effort into hardware and software segments with a primary mission autonomy provider by the summer of 2027.
“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing, we position ourselves to field highly credible and combat-ready semi-autonomous systems to stay ahead of the pacing challenge. These contracts reaffirm our confidence in the strategic path forward for the program to procure over 150 combat capable CCA by the end of the decade.” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink
Related Articles:
Air Force Selects Both General Atomics and Anduril for CCA Production
Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to build first operational CCA drones
Air Force picks General Atomics, Anduril to build first CCA drone wingmen
Our Take: This is a huge step toward an autonomous future where the U.S. military has fleets of advanced drones to support a wide variety of missions, including ones where the risk is too high for manned platforms. The Fighters and Advanced Aircraft PAE team (led by Brig Gen select Tim Helfrich) deserves enormous credit for getting this award completed early and also for sustaining competition into full-scale production. We hope they will do the same for the mission autonomy package as we need multiple vendors to continue investing in these critical technologies.
U.S. Navy Awards Castelion First Delivery Order for Blackbeard Hypersonic Weapon
BLUF: Castelion has been awarded a $23.4M contract from the Navy for the production and delivery of 50 Blackbeard early operational capability pre-production prototypes and 50 associated storage and shipping containers.
The order supports continued maturation of Castelion’s low-cost, highly manufacturable long-range hypersonic strike weapons.
The award marks an important step in Blackbeard’s transition from development and flight testing toward operationally relevant production.
It is expected to be delivered by end of next year.
This award will exercise the company’s expanding production capacity at its Project Ranger manufacturing campus in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Our Take: It is worth taking a moment to appreciate the progress that has been made in the defense tech space when DoW is able to place an order for low-cost hypersonic weapons. A price point of less than $500K for a hypersonic prototype missile clearly shows that we are moving into the next generation of hypersonic weapons.
Where Things Stand with the Pentagon’s $350B Reconciliation Request
BLUF: With key members of Congress wavering on the possibility of a $350B defense reconciliation bill, the Pentagon is likely drawing up budget backup plans which would drive hard choices between high-end weapons and low-cost, autonomous capabilities.
DoW’s $1.5T budget request for 2027 is split with $1.15T going through the normal appropriations process and $350B earmarked for reconciliation.
The Air Force is counting on $16B in reconciliation to pay for big ticket items such as $2.3B for 14 F-35s and more than $2.9B for critical munitions (JAASM/JATM).
The Space Force has requested $12B in reconciliation to pay for the Air Moving Target Indicator program and for Space Data Network procurement.
The window to pass a new reconciliation bill, Congress’ third in about a year, is starting to close.
Key Republican lawmakers have voiced apathy toward the idea or skepticism that their conference will be able to wrangle another reconciliation bill after months of work on the previous two (most recently one for DHS funding).
Should Congress not pass the bill, the Pentagon may be forced to cut expensive programs from the base budget to make room for reconciliation priorities.
A supplemental could offer a “relief valve” if Congress can’t find the votes for the full reconciliation.
“I think if we’re forced into that position, you just make other trade-offs, like against exquisite weapons and systems. How much of those are we willing to sacrifice in place of low-cost autonomous weapons?” Emil Michael
Related Article: Pentagon may ‘sacrifice’ traditional weapons to buy more drones if reconciliation fails: CTO
Our Take: Our intel is consistent with this article, and the supplemental seems like the best chance for DoW to ensure that they can backfill accounts to avoid putting any unnecessary pressure on accounts that are for investments and modernization. Check out more details on what is in reconciliation from the $1.5T budget request here.
Pentagon Tells Lawmakers It Needs $80B for Iran War, Other Expenses
BLUF: DoW needs $80B to cover Iran War costs as well as other non-war-related bills, Deputy Defense Secretary Feinberg told lawmakers in phone calls this week.
A full U.S. supplemental request, which will include money for the Pentagon as well as non-defense priorities such as farm and disaster relief, could be sent to lawmakers in the coming days.
The Iran war has cost around $25 billion, a Pentagon official told Reuters in April providing the first official estimate of war costs.
INDOPACOM: Pentagon Returns Name to US Pacific Command
BLUF: INDOPACOM is now just PACOM. It reflects the return of great power competition as decades of combat in the Global War on Terror were winding down.
Related Article: Goodbye INDOPACOM: Pentagon reverts back to Pacific Command
Drone Dominance Program Receives First Order, Gauntlet II Gets Underway
BLUF: Drone Dominance Program Gauntlet Phase II qualifiers concluded this week which pitted 49 companies and 79 unique unmanned aerial systems against rigorous mission scenarios, including long-range strikes and close-quarters tactical assaults.
Each company brought 20 drones to take on the challenge.
The Drone Dominance Program is a $1.1B, two-year effort to procure, integrate and train with low-cost, high-performing drones manufactured in the U.S.
The first batch of drones was accepted, with nearly 2,000 additional units shipped to the services and thousands more ramping up for fulfillment.
Following a highly successful Phase I, which saw the purchase of 30,000 drones, the department is gearing up for the next major milestone.
By fostering fierce commercial competition via a public leaderboard, the department aims to scale production from 30,000 to 150,000 units per phase, ultimately dropping the target unit cost from $5,000 to approximately $3,000.
By 2027, the Drone Dominance Program intends to field more than 200,000 lethal, artificial intelligence-enabled drones
Our Take: While this is notable progress, we certainly hope the next administration continues this progress and continues to build the scale necessary to support drone operations in a major conflict. While 200,000 initially feels like a big number, the context of Ukraine and Russia each burning through that in a single month highlights the challenge ahead of building an industrial base that does not require Chinese components.
CDAO’s Swarm Forge Makes Awards
BLUF: CDAO selected 25 out of 133 submissions to perform or observe at the Crucible 2 event at Camp Blanding, Florida, on June 22-26.
Swarm Forge aims to help DoW address those problems by accelerating the validation and fielding of AI-enabled collaborative, autonomous systems.
Companies below will be put on contract to work Swarm Forge efforts.
AeroVironment, Inc. | Anduril Technologies | Ark Robotics | Astral Technology Corp. | Auterion Government Solutions Inc. | Breaker | Chord Robotics, Inc. | DAINAMIX Inc. | Data Blanket Inc. | Hardy Dynamics | Helsing Inc. | Lockheed Martin | Mistral Inc. | NODA AI, Inc. | Nokturnal AI | OpenDefense | Palantir USG, Inc. | Post Quantum Labs LLC. | Regent Defense | Scientific Systems Company, Inc. | Scout AI, Inc. | Shield AI | Skyeton, Inc. | SwarmInt LLC. | Tycho AI Inc.
Missile Production Push Runs into Solid Rocket Motor Bottleneck
BLUF: U.S. production of solid rocket motors (SRMs) is rising, but not fast enough to meet the Pentagon’s missile-defense program demands based on a CSIS Report.
The Pentagon expects deliveries of 2,100+ air and missile defense interceptors in calendar year 2027, a roughly 70% increase from nearly 1,300 in 2021.
CSIS says that level remains well below the department’s stated production goals of roughly 5,000 interceptors a year across Army, Navy and Air Force programs.
A central concern is that SRMs are required for every major missile program.
Problems in motor production, propellant ingredients, nozzles, inspection capacity or the specialized workforce can ripple across multiple weapon lines.
Between 2000 and 2015, the domestic solid rocket motor industry shrank from six suppliers to two: Aerojet Rocketdyne and Orbital ATK. Those companies are now part of L3Harris and Northrop Grumman, respectively.
A new group of entrants has moved into the market, including X-Bow, Ursa Major, Firehawk, Castelion, Anduril, Nammo, Avio USA and Prometheus Energetics.
CSIS says those companies could diversify the supply base, but many haven’t yet moved from prototypes or limited production into large production lots.
Commercial launch once helped support demand for solid rocket motors, but much of the commercial launch market has moved toward liquid propulsion, reducing the space sector’s role as a stabilizing source of demand for SRMs.
The report calls for stable demand signals, multiyear buying, direct investment in suppliers, requirements reform and broader acceptance of new suppliers.
The report also says acquisition rules and cost-focused requirements can make it harder to introduce new materials, components and manufacturing processes.
CSIS Report: Solid Rocket Motors for Missile Defense: Challenges and Opportunities for Expanding the Industrial Base
Our Take: This is a really good report that everyone should read through. We definitely agree with its conclusion that addressing key supply chain challenges requires a more holistic approach. Just as with rare earth mining and processing required a deeper look at permitting processes, the SRM bottleneck deserves a deeper look at how certification can be accelerated for new suppliers, how business models can be adjusted to drive the right incentives and how manufacturing process innovations can be adopted faster to support faster production.
Related Article: Northrop Grumman says industry ready to scale solid rocket production, with longer contracts
New Radar System Can Detect High-Speed Drones Nearby Ports, Vessels in Extreme Environment
BLUF: A new type of radar (IRIS OTM at Sea) to detect drones nearby ports, vessels, harbors, and critical maritime infrastructure has been developed by Robin Radar Systems to support seamless land-to-sea deployments.
The new system is a major expansion of its IRIS On-The-Move (OTM) capability.
The comprehensive update is aimed at strengthening counter-UAS protection for shipping lanes, naval operations, and coastal assets.
Originally developed to operate from moving land vehicles traveling at speeds exceeding 62 mph, IRIS On-The-Move will now be adapted for maritime environments through advanced software enhancements that compensate for sea clutter, vessel movement, and challenging coastal conditions.
Designed to be mounted on vessels, IRIS OTM at Sea will detect, track, and classify drones while travelling at speeds of up to 54 knots, operating effectively in extreme environments thanks to its salt- and corrosion-resistant engineering, resonance tolerance, and EMC-compliant architecture.
“What we are seeing globally is that the drone threat is no longer confined to the battlefield or to land-based infrastructure. Shipping lanes, ports, harbours and offshore assets are now all exposed to low-cost aerial threats that can disrupt trade, damage infrastructure and threaten civilian safety.” Siete Hamminga, CEO, Robin Radar Systems
Bunker Busters With Winged JDAM-ER Kits Could Allow For Near Horizontal Strikes On Fortified Targets
BLUF: DoW wants to see if it can enhance the capabilities of the 2,000-pound-class Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision-guided bomb as a bunker-busting munition.
JDAM-ERs already come with wing kits that allow them to glide dozens of miles to their targets. This would also open up new opportunities for low-angle, lateral attacks on hardened targets.
Being able to focus the effects of a bunker buster bomb directly on the side of a structure rather than at steeper angles from the top could offer major benefits.
It would be possible to get the bombs deeper down inside entrance tunnels and through the sides of fortified structures, magnifying the warhead’s effectiveness.
The military also looks set to field a jet-powered derivative, called the GBU-75/B JDAM-LR, which features even greater range.
Our Take: The JDAM has always been a great example of a low-cost effector with high value very much aligned with efforts to use lower-cost drones to achieve many of the effects of very exquisite systems. Enhancing the JDAM in this way makes a lot of sense. One key point however is that the JDAM is really just a kit that goes on a large WWII-style bomb. Production of these bombs at high scale is high-risk given the reliance on aging government facilities and supply chain bottlenecks (precursors for energetics and other elements).
The Robot Takeover of Warfare is Already Happening
BLUF: Warfare in our times is increasingly becoming a contest between machines. Millions of drones are now being produced annually by both Ukraine and Russia, transforming reconnaissance, logistics, artillery spotting, and strike missions.
Cheap drones and missiles costing tens of thousands of dollars have repeatedly forced defenders to launch interceptors worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars, proving that future conflicts may be determined as much by cost-exchange ratios as by technological superiority.
The first generation of battlefield robots look like first-person-view drones carrying explosives, autonomous reconnaissance aircraft, robotic ground vehicles delivering ammunition, and uncrewed boats attacking warships.
In April, Ukraine announced that one operation to capture a Russian position was conducted entirely using unmanned systems, including aerial drones and robotic ground vehicles, without direct human assault troops.
While humans still planned and supervised the mission, the operation offered a glimpse into how future battles may unfold.
The Drone is Not the Weapon. The Software Commanding It Is
BLUF: DoD Directive 3000.09 defines lethal autonomous weapon systems by what the munition does. A CSIS brief “Defining Autonomy: Why Software, Not Drones, Will Decide the Next War,” argues that this definition misses where autonomy actually lives.
The software that orchestrates those effectors can fuse sensor feeds, assign targets, and determine when and what to strike.
More simply, it can select and engage in exactly the sense the directive names, and this software will soon do so without a human operator in the loop.
The locus of lethal decision-making is not the thing that flies; instead, it is the software that commands it.
They propose five principles to correct this problem:
Government ownership of the orchestration layer,
Integration into training from day one,
Genuine vendor agnosticism,
AI evaluation built into the system, and
Immediate experimentation.
If Autonomous Warfare sub-unified command materializes around DAWG and is built around the five principles above, it could lay the institutional foundation for U.S. leadership in autonomous warfare.
As a cross-service body, DAWG is positioned to do something the services cannot do on their own: divest legacy systems and build clean-sheet solutions
DAWG is the closest thing the Pentagon has to a vehicle that can deliver the orchestration layer now, before the next budget cycle, the next administration, or the next major conflict forces the decision.
In the twentieth century, the country that built the first nuclear weapon held the strategic advantage for a generation. In the twenty-first, the country that builds the orchestration layer for autonomous warfare first will hold a comparable kind of advantage, one defined not by yield but by the speed, scale, and tempo with which it can act.
Our Take: While there has been some consternation over the new autonomous sub-unified command, this is one of the reasons that Congress is pushing so hard in that direction, namely because the services are either not positioned or incentivized to take these critical tasks on themselves.
Foundation Alloy Raises $22M, Teams Up with Re:Build, Expands to Asia
BLUF: Advanced metals manufacturing startup Foundation Alloy announced that its raised a $22M Series A to “scale production on its MetalsFIRST™ platform—a fully integrated, solid-state metallurgy technology—to industrial volumes.
The company is opening a new 36,000-square-foot facility in Massachusetts and teaming up with manufacturing hotshot Re:Build Manufacturing to set up a “modular production cell” for metals in the company’s New Hampshire facility.
The company uses a zero-heat alloying method known as “mechanical alloying,” which forces metal particles to bind together physically (rather than using heat).
Quiet Supersonic X-59 Jet Hits 924 mph in NASA Test at 55,000 Feet
BLUF: Slicing through the atmosphere at 55,000 feet, NASA’s experimental X-59 reached a vital milestone on Friday, June 12, by hitting Mach 1.4 (roughly 924 mph).
Developed in partnership with Lockheed Martin, NASA’s X-59 is an experimental aircraft designed for supersonic flight.
For over fifty years, international aviation regulators have strictly banned civilian supersonic flights over land due to the deafening, window-rattling disruption of sonic booms.
The X-59 is built like a needle. Its ultra-long, slender shape separates those air-pressure waves and prevents any combination from occurring.
US Startup Starts Work on ‘First Utility-Scale Quantum Computer’ in Australia
BLUF: American startup PsiQuantum has begun construction on a facility in Moreton Bay, Australia, where it plans to build and deploy what it calls the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.
The project is expected to become a key part of Australia’s push to establish itself as a hub for advanced computing technologies.
One of the first major components arriving at the site will be a large cryogenic plant designed to cool the quantum system.
PsiQuantum said the cryoplant (the largest cryogenic cooling plants ever for a quantum computing application) is being built by Linde Engineering and is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2027.
The cooling system will be followed by cryogenic cabinets that will contain photonic quantum chips.
PsiQuantum is pursuing a photonics-based approach designed to scale using existing semiconductor manufacturing processes and optical networking technologies.
PsiQuantum also sees quantum computing as a complement to emerging computational technologies rather than a replacement.
Our Take: It’s great to see close allied cooperation on such a critical project with broad economic and national security implications. Australia has really leaned forward in focusing its resources on quantum applications.
Pentagon Goes Full Throttle: America’s Ammo Factories Enter Wartime Mode, Aiming for 100,000 Shells Monthly
BLUF: Currently, US factories are producing around 40,000 shells monthly—a figure that has already tripled since pre-2022 levels and officials remain confident they can hit the 100,000/month milestone by early 2026.
DoW has invested nearly $5B into expanding domestic manufacturing capabilities, upgrading aging infrastructure, and launching new plants to support the increased demand.
Until recently, all 155mm shell casings were produced at a single Scranton, Pennsylvania, facility and a nearby private plant.
The casings were then shipped to Iowa for explosive filling.
That process is now being decentralized and modernized.
The United States is also set to resume domestic production of TNT, a key explosive compound not manufactured domestically since the 1980s.
A new facility in Graham, Kentucky, will be built by Repkon USA—a U.S. subsidiary of Turkish artillery munitions firm Repkon—to supply TNT for artillery needs.
The US is also moving propellant production stateside, with new capacity being built at American Ordnance plants in Middletown, Iowa, and Camden, Arkansas, alongside a new General Dynamics site.
Other Defense Tech News:
The Defense Industrial Base Has a New Playbook. Now Let’s Run It
John Burer and Will Durant
BLUF: The conventional wisdom in defense has been to layer more resources onto familiar structures: more contracts to established primes, more government-owned facilities, and more traditional procurement pathways. However, this created a circular dependency problem for new hardware companies trying to enter the market: no contracts without a factory, and no factory without contracts.
While the United States struggled with this challenge, China pushed through it.
They built the necessary connective tissue for industrial production: coordinated infrastructure, supplier depth, and rapid iteration.
Today, their production infrastructure allows them to acquire high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the U.S. — not because their technology is superior, but because their production infrastructure is.
The lesson for America isn't to blindly replicate China’s centralized model but, instead, to play to our natural strengths: competition, capitalism, and innovation.
Doing so would lower the barriers to entry for new companies — supercharging competition and diversifying our defense industrial base.
The solution to unlock this potential at scale is the industrial campus: a geographically concentrated manufacturing ecosystem aligned to specific production needs.
These campuses combine shared infrastructure, supply chains, technical expertise, workforce development, permitting competence, secure data environments, and proximity to government facilities or mission owners.
Small initial public investment in projects like this can reduce early risk and attract massive amounts of private capital to help projects move at a speed and scale that would not be possible with government appropriations alone.
In Indiana, a 1,100-acre National Security Industrial Hub, adjacent to Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and seeded by a $75M DoW award, is attracting the kind of company that the old model often struggled to support.
Prometheus Energetics, which builds advanced solid rocket motors, is establishing its headquarters and main production facility on 600 acres of the campus.
The project is expected to catalyze roughly $600M in private investment, eight times the initial government commitment.
The industrial mobilizations that defined our greatest moments worked because well-placed public investment activated a broad commercial system built for speed, depth, and dynamism.
The model is proven. The question is how fast we are willing to scale it.
Our Take: We are very bullish on the campus approach especially when it is paired with commitments from state and local leaders. This model can also be expanded to build broader ecosystems across the country in places that could better support national security but don’t have the right starting point.
Mach Industries Wins DIU Contract for Long-Range Strike Drone
Our Take: Mach Industries announced that it won a contract for the DIU’s Runway Independent Maritime & Expeditionary Strike (RIMES) program to develop a new aircraft for the Navy called Atlas that is capable of delivering fighter-sized munitions across hundreds of miles with minimal launch infrastructure.
Mach is serving as the aircraft integrator on the contract and is teaming up with Whisper Aero to integrate the engine maker’s ultra-efficient electric propulsion system into Atlas, extending the range and making it super quiet.
RIMES is designed to give the Navy a long-range strike capability from platforms and places that can’t support fighter jets. The solicitation called for a UAS that:
Can operate without runways in “expeditionary locations” or large flight decks from vessels like Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), and the Navy’s future FF(X) frigate.
Has a one-way range of 1,400 nm and can carry the 1,000-pound standard munitions that F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35 fighter jets already deliver.
Has mission autonomy and the ability to operate in contested environments, an open systems architecture, and is “cost-effective.”
Mach’s current prototype is at around Technology Readiness Level 4 and that they might look to commercialize the subscale version as a standalone product once it’s tested and validated.
Our Take: Those requirements are interesting. We don’t know what the price point but rough math should make it cheaper than an Air Force CCA which has 3x the likely capacity and likely much faster speed but with similar range profiles. Typically, this type of UAS, it would be focused on launching long-range weapons (like DARPA’s Long Shot program) not dropping bombs. Usually that mission set requires a greater degree of survivability so the Navy must be banking on the slow speed (which would confuse radar) and quiet propulsion to sneak through enemy defenses.
OSC Signs $725M Conditional Loan Commitment with Energy Fuels
BLUF: The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) announced a $725M conditional loan commitment with Energy Fuels, Inc. to scale the company's domestic processing of rare earth elements.
Together, the OSC investment and private capital will support a new, state-of-the-art, U.S.-based rare earth separation and metallization facility.
Energy Fuels has historically specialized in uranium production and will now expand into rare earth separation and metallization.
This is a highly technical midstream process that bridges the critical gap between raw extraction and permanent magnet production.
The conditional loan commitment specifies customary additional steps that the company must take to proceed toward financial close on the loan, including fulfilling financial, legal, technical and other due diligence requirements.
OSC Signs $500M Conditional Loan Commitment with Phoenix Tailings
BLUF: The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) announced $500M conditional loan commitment with Phoenix Tailings, Inc. to scale the company's domestic processing of rare earth elements.
Together, the OSC investment and private capital will provide approximately $1B for a significant expansion of critical metal production at existing facilities and a new, state-of-the-art, U.S.-based rare earth separation and metallization facility.
The company's increased production will directly support permanent magnet facilities across the broader U.S. industrial base and improve supply chains for other specialty defense and industrial products.
Our Take: OSC going big on rare earths.
Lockheed, GM Announce Partnership to Bolster Production for Munitions and More
BLUF: Lockheed Martin and General Motors have signed a partnership agreement aimed at harnessing GM’s manufacturing prowess to enable the world’s largest defense contractor to boost weapons production.
The memorandum of agreement, announced at the Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit, focuses on three areas:
strengthening defense supply chains
advancing manufacturing
evaluating opportunities to expand production capacity through commercial manufacturing expertise and infrastructure
One report said that the companies are in talks about GM producing “commonly used parts” that could help Lockheed as it scales munitions production.
The arrangement came about after the Defense Department urged Lockheed to find “non-traditional” business partners that would allow it to boost manufacturing capacity.
“So what this is about is not trying to blend products, if you will, but to take the best of the infrastructure expertise, and how do we manage our businesses and learn from each other to raise the tide for the defense industrial base.” Frank St. John, Lockheed Martin COO
Our Take: Call us a little skeptical on this one since there seems to be no details about what parts GM would produce or subsystems it would assemble. While GM has a robust defense business side, it is primarily for vehicles, mobility systems, power systems, autonomy, and military logistics platforms. While Lockheed could benefit from GM’s manufacturing expertise, this is not the same as outsourcing defense production to civil manufacturers as this would initially suggest. It would be ideal however if we could get more auto manufacturers able to produce key assemblies for highly scalable systems like missiles.
Pentagon Turns to US Chip Maker to Fix Aging Carrier Systems and Legacy Hardware
BLUF: Phoenix Semiconductor has won a Phase II SBIR contract from the Defense Logistics Agency to develop drop-in replacements for obsolete microelectronic components used in defense systems.
The company will design and validate four legacy chips facing supply shortages across military platforms.
The program aims to maintain critical systems without requiring redesigns of existing hardware or software, addressing long-standing issues tied to discontinued semiconductors.
REGENT Completes World’s First Seaglider Manufacturing Facility
BLUF: REGENT Craft, the developer and manufacturer of Seaglider vessels, today announced the completion of the world's first Seaglider Manufacturing Facility
The Seaglider Manufacturing Facility will serve as the global production hub for REGENT's commercial order book, which exceeds $10 billion across six continents, encompassing orders from leading airline and ferry operators worldwide.
Spanning 255,000 square feet, the facility features dedicated areas for structural assembly, wing and hydrofoil integration, battery and systems installation, and water-based test and acceptance operations, with tooling, metrology, and quality checkpoints embedded throughout.
The layout is engineered to support phased capacity increases as production scales, without compromising safety or certification objectives.
Boeing Demonstrates Quantum Protocol in Payload Set for 2027 Launch
BLUF: Boeing demonstrated a key quantum networking protocol in ground testing of a compact payload ahead of on-orbit experiment in 2027.
“High-fidelity entanglement swapping” was demonstrated earlier this year by Boeing’s Q4S quantum networking satellite system.
After performing entanglement-swapping tests for more than a year, Boeing is now performing final integration of the Q4S mission.
There’s growing interest and funding for companies developing space-based quantum sensors, clocks and computers.
Entanglement swapping, which relies on teleportation to extend links between entangled photon pairs, is a core building block of quantum networks.
“One of the hardest parts of quantum networking is maintaining strong performance while working within the size, weight and power limits of a spacecraft. These test results show that we can produce high-fidelity swaps on a payload engineered for space, not just for a controlled lab bench. That is a meaningful step toward practical quantum networks.” Jay Lowell, Boeing Quantum Systems chief scientist
AMG Opens a New Chrome Metal Facility and Becomes the Sole US Producer
BLUF: AMG Critical Materials N.V. announced the opening of its chrome metal production facility in New Castle, Pennsylvania. With its $15M investment and planned annual capacity of 6,500 tons, AMG Chrome is set to become the sole producer of chrome metal in the United States.
The new facility addresses a long-standing deficit in the U.S. supply chain as chrome metal is a key ingredient in advanced alloys, and demand is accelerating.
It is essential to the nickel-chromium superalloys in jet engines such as the LEAP engine, to space-launch vehicles including rockets such as SpaceX’s Starship, and to clean-energy systems such as solid oxide fuel cells.
Only three plants in the Western world produce chrome metal — two of them now AMG’s, in the UK and the U.S. — with the rest in China and Russia.
Fabri Announces It’s Raised $13.5M for New-Age Casting
BLUF: Manufacturing startup and MIT spinout Fabri announced that it has raised a total of $13.5M in funding since it was founded in 2022 from investors.
The company is still on its seed round but is already shipping out castings—including to two prime investors, Lockheed Martin and RTX.
They’re also setting up a second foundry (they call their first facility an “R&D Foundry”), which they hope to have online at full production capacity by 2027.
Fabri is building a fully automated foundry that uses some additive manufacturing, robots, and machine learning to minimize the trickiest (and most human-intensive) parts of investment casting.
Tectonic gives a nice rundown of their process:
The company uses additive manufacturing to print the wax molds, rather than having humans assemble them.
The company has also developed bespoke software that is constantly collecting production data, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and pinpointing where faults are happening.
With 3D-printed molds, Fabri can also play with new (perhaps more organic, or lighter, or more streamlined) shapes or geometries for different parts, while still using a traditional casting process.
Our Take: Casting is always a prolonged process so any efforts to streamline that could drive major improvements down the line.
Divergent Builds New Mega-Printers and Mega-Factory
BLUF: Divergent announced that they’ve designed and built a massive 26-foot-tall metal 3D printer called Monolith One, and they’re putting 64 units in their new 430,000 square foot facility in Long Beach, CA, within the next two years.
The company’s new printers—six of which are operating at their Torrance facility—and expanded manufacturing footprint are expected to deliver an eightfold increase in annual production output for a range of defense programs.
The Monolith One printer—26 feet tall and 20 feet wide—is a laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) printer that uses high-powered lasers to selectively melt layers of metal powder, fusing them to build solid 3D structures.
It’s compatible with industry-standard alloys like aluminum, nickel, steel, and titanium.
The company said the 64 printers will be able to deliver over 275,000 piece parts, over 30,000 500lb-class missile airframes, and over 60,000 100lb-class warhead casings, among other metal structures.
Our Take: Bravo Divergent. We’ve been bullish on this company for a long while and look forward to seeing them show the potential of new manufacturing technologies revolutionize how we do defense production.
A&D Dealmaking Reprices Around Capability, Backlog, and Production Certainty
BLUF: The top five A&D primes ended FY2025 with $1.36 trillion in combined backlog, up 23.7% year over year. Strong investor demand is driving higher multiples across strategic, private equity (PE), venture capital (VC), and public markets.
European rearmament has become a key catalyst for cross-border M&A.
NATO allies are increasingly treating higher defense spending as a long-term planning assumption, and European revenue has grown double digits across major US contractors.
Production bottlenecks across aircraft, engines, shipbuilding, and the broader Tier 2/3 supplier base make M&A a practical fix for capacity that organic investment cannot close quickly enough.
Pentagon Aims to Sidestep Potential Collusion Through DPA
BLUF: Trump invokes the Defense Production Act to allow “voluntary agreements” as a way to break “systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base” for production capacity, supply chains, long-lead items, and other production “bottlenecks.”
Michael Cadenazzi (ASD for Industrial Base Policy) said that invoking DPA will enable him to gather large groups of munitions suppliers together to better strategize investment and production plans and shorten the certification process.
Some of those topics of conversation could range from workforce and engineering topics to materials issues and electronics to concerns regarding certification and qualification.
“I want to be able to bring all the solid rocket motor providers into one room and say, ‘We have talked about having solid rocket motor problems for a long time. We now have the opposite. We have 10-12 companies that want to make SRMs. How do I best approach the market for SRMs?”
Related Article: Trump Invokes Cold War-Era Law to Boost Munitions Production
Fincantieri CEO Opens Up About the Constellation Class Frigate Debacle
BLUF: The saga of the Constellation class frigate is emblematic of so many chronic issues with the Navy’s way of procuring warships. This is the story from the industry perspective.
The Navy needed the Constellation class frigate on an accelerated timeline.
Rather than a clean-sheet design, the service chose the proven Franco-Italian FREMM as its parent design, betting that adapting an existing platform would be far faster and cheaper, and overall less risky than starting from scratch.
Among the issues plaguing the program, constant change orders pushed the design far from its origins. Two years into construction, the first ship was barely 10% complete while its design was still being finalized.
As a result of these issues, the Navy late last year cancelled the program. That left Fincantieri’s Wisconsin yard sidelined while a contract to replace the Constellation class frigate went to rival Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.
One lesson from George Moutafis, CEO of Fincantieri Marine Group is that the PAE structure is needed to make tradeoffs a bigger element of the acquisition process and to help guide the decision on “good enough.”
If it hadn’t been for the constant changes, he thinks the initial and envisioned approach was a healthy one, but it needed to stay closer to the original design.
Our Take: These are some pretty good lessons to take and shows how the acquisition system needs to balance adaptability and stability. Understand the full list of backlog requirements from the users but also introduce them at the right points as part of a next rapid increment - not in the middle of production.
Tribute to Joshua Baer who established the Capital Factory and helped supercharge Austin, Texas a defense innovation hub.
***CDN is seeking acquisition ninjas to join us as an Acq Transformation Lead***
Inside the Army’s Efforts to Jam Its Own Forces — and What It Learned
BLUF: Ivy Mass, which took place for several weeks in May, was the culmination of a series of incremental events slowly scaling a prototype of the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative to a full division - and it included red cell efforts charged with creating jamming effects against 4th ID soldiers.
The event was the first time the Army threw combined jamming, space, GPS and cyber threats against the network architecture as it was being maneuvered by units, with Army leaders hoping to stress the system under the most realistic battlefield conditions ahead of acquisition and fielding decisions for future units.
The Army brought significant effects into the field as it sought to replicate the kind of jamming and EW that the military would face in a Pacific scenario.
That meant 11 cyber red team units seeking to conduct vulnerability assessments, hitting everything from gaps in the network to spoofing WiFi passwords; space capabilities that replicate contested GPS; and a dozen high-powered jammers.
A key finding is that the opposing force had great success not by fully jamming the blue force but merely degrading their systems.
If the blue force knew they were being jammed, they’d activate their sensing equipment to triage.
However, if they thought their systems simply weren’t working properly, they initially didn’t think to use sensing gear and tried to troubleshoot other ways.
That futile effort took attention away from the fight as soldiers had to troubleshoot the network, while stymieing efforts to get data and communications to the right place, affording the enemy an advantage.
“We’re learning how these soldiers are facing EW for the first time in their careers, a lot of them. They haven’t faced it at this magnitude. In 28 years in the Army, I’ve never seen a more comprehensive and larger DDL [Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited] assessment, especially against a division size force.” Brig. Gen. Michael Kalootian, director of the Command and Control Future Capability Directorate
Army Launches UAS Marketplace
BLUF: The Army sees the launch of the #UASMarketplace as a game-changer for Army acquisition, creating a competitive ecosystem that scales domestic manufacturing and drives rapid innovation.
General Atomics Awarded Army Contract for Extended-Range Artillery Round
BLUF: The Army has awarded GA Electromagnetic Systems a contract to validate a maneuvering 155mm artillery round designed to strike targets beyond the reach of conventional rounds.
The contract is part of the Army’s Extended Range Artillery Projectile Program, or ERAP, which seeks to field a next-generation munition that can maintain precision in GPS-degraded or denied situations.
The Army is aiming to reach initial operational capability by fiscal 2030.
Instead of traveling only along a predetermined path, maneuvering munitions can change course in-flight to be more precise.
The projectile is updated to travel farther while remaining compatible with existing artillery platforms.
Related Article: General Atomics wins contract for Army’s ERAP program, joining two other vendors
Crow Industries Completes Rapid Integration During U.S. Army's "Right to Integrate" Sprint
BLUF: Participating in the historic "Right to Integrate" sprint, Crow Industries completed rapid integration priorities to "jailbreak" all Fenris UGVs for broadscale interoperability with command-and-control (C2), autonomy, and payload systems.
Crow Industries was invited among other top defense companies to Fort Carson in Colorado to break down cross-platform silos and deliver the real-time data sharing required to combat modern threats.
Right to Integrate (R2I) was created to address a long-standing challenge across the defense technology ecosystem where systems from different vendors operating in silos, limiting the interoperability of platforms from different vendors to communicate, share data, and execute intent cohesively in the field.
A small engineering team from Crow Industries went to Fort Carson, then quickly built, tested, and validated the APIs necessary to connect with the base model C2 platform, enabling all Fenris UGVs to be viewed and controlled alongside other manned, unmanned, and payload systems in a single operating picture.
This sprint focused on proving that participating vendors could expose interfaces, document their systems, and integrate into a shared operational platform.
Army’s Newest Unit Aims To “Overwhelm” Adversary with Drones in Pacific Fight
BLUF: U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) stood up a new command (7th ID MDC-PAC) that merges the maneuver capabilities of the 7th ID’s two Stryker brigades with the long-range sensing, fires, cyber, space, EW, and information capabilities of the MDTF.
The new unit was created as the U.S. still struggles to be on the leading-edge of modern drone warfare, especially when it comes to the lower-end segment of this broad capability set.
This includes fielding an AI-driven system that can make and execute decisions on its own — routing data, repositioning sensors, matching targets to shooters — without requiring a human to manually approve each step.
A key to making this all work is getting these drones into the hands of troops to see how these systems actually function across the wide range of environments where the Army operates in the Pacific.
“We have learned, particularly looking at Ukraine, there really is no sanctuary area that is protected from observation and potential targeting.” Maj. Gen. Bernard J. Harrington
Related Article: Army activates new command focused on maneuverable, multidomain Pacific operations
The Army Bought 10,000 IVAS Headsets. Soldiers Won’t Use Them.
BLUF: The Army spent over a billion dollars on nearly 10,000 augmented-reality headsets for soldiers to wear in combat, but a GAO study finds that they likely won’t end up being used.
The Army decided to pivot to the Soldier Borne Mission Command System underpinned by a ‘Company and Below’ architecture informed by lessons learned from the IVAS program.”
In September 2025, Anduril announced that it was selected to develop a prototype for the new SBMC program.
EagleEye, Anduril’s proposed offering, was designed to improve on the critiques of IVAS, like the neck pain that soldiers complained about.
The IVAS 1.2 prototypes are being used as SMBC surrogates and have been used in the ongoing mission at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The goal of IVAS was to give soldiers a digital headset that improves their situational awareness while in combat with a mixed reality heads-up display that projects images onto a digital screen which is attached to a soldier’s helmet.
Our Take: Like many GAO reports, this one is kind of misleading. The Army did what was right. They were trying to move fast so they bought a decent amount of IVAS 1.2 prototypes for experimentation. When they found that the price point was going to be too high and that there were unresolved issues, they pivoted to a new program with a revamped acquisition strategy. As far as we know, the Soldier Borne Mission Command System is on-track. Long-term, we still don’t know if the full range of soldiers will resist wearing headsets…or if it just takes more time than expected to generate wide-scale adoption.
Navy Preps Science-and-Tech Strategy Built for Speed and Focus
BLUF: A new Navy science-and-tech strategy will push technology to the fleet faster and concentrate limited research funds on problems that industry won't solve on its own. It also urges closer collaboration with DIU, warfighters, and other stakeholders.
ONR is working to "de-layer and simplify" its bureaucracy, so that the limiting factor on technology development is the physical science and not the processes and the policies around it.
ONR leadership is also pushing program officers to serve as a “thought partner” to defense contractors and to pass useful technology off to industry.
DIU’s maritime unit is working on contested logistics, including an autonomous resupply vessel effort, and clearing naval mines.
"Speed is, of course, the word of the year in our business. I have 1,100 Ph.Ds who work for me, almost all in STEM. They're brilliant Americans who dedicated their lives to serving. And so many of them, when I showed up and asked them, you know, “How do we make sure that what we're investing in isn't duplicative with industry? It's quite simple. If there is profit to be made, then it is something where industry capital will flow. Perhaps not perfectly, but eventually.” Rachel Riley, ONR Chief
“The recent rescue of two Army helicopter pilots by an uncrewed boat made it a great week at the DIU. The recovery of Apache aircrew using a 24-foot Saronic Corsair USV went from first splash to success in four months.” Dr. Jarred Conley
Navy Looks to Fleet-Wide Expeditionary Mine Warfare in Wake of Operation Epic Fury
BLUF: The Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training and Evaluation Unit One (EODTEU1) will evaluate a new form of mine-clearing capability after identifying a series of new requirements in the Indo-Pacific—particularly for the service’s doctrine of distributed maritime operations.
The mission change comes amid a series of challenges in the Middle East in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian military forces dropped mines to prevent commercial ship traffic from entering or exiting the Persian Gulf.
EODTEU1 is looking to establish a series of new training regimens that can enable ExMCM companies to operate from a wide range of grey-hulled and commercial vessels in support of short-duration tasking.
The requested ship is slated to operate three rigid-hull inflatable boats, combat rubber raiding craft, and two Mark 18 Mod 2 Kingfish unmanned undersea vehicles typically used with an onboard sonar to locate and map potential mines.
The effort reflects a broader transformation in how the U.S. Navy plans to conduct mine countermeasure operations.
For decades, the mission relied heavily on specialized ships designed specifically to hunt and clear mines but that is less viable as aging ships are retired.
The ability to deploy mine-hunting systems from “vessels of opportunity” could prove particularly valuable in the vast expanses of the Pacific, where dedicated mine countermeasure assets may not be available early in a conflict.
Our Take: This makes a lot of sense. The DMO operational concepts demand the ability for Navy ships to operate with a greater degree of separation which makes it harder to ensure a force package with all the specialized capabilities is available. A more flexible and adaptive approach is a better way to move forward.
Navy Announces Cloud Computing Task Orders for JWCC Contract
BLUF: The Neptune Cloud Management Office (Neptune) has announced the award of Joint Warfighting Capability Cloud (JWCC) task orders to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Azure), Google Public Sector (GCP), and Oracle America (Oracle) for Department of the Navy (DON) cloud computing services.
Neptune’s JWCC task orders will streamline the Department’s consumption of cloud services and expedite mission owners’ ability to acquire the cloud services needed to support their mission.
Neptune-managed task orders reduce the acquisition timeline for an expanded catalog of capabilities available to mission owners under JWCC.
HII Delivers First of the Newest REMUS Variant: 130
BLUF: REMUS 130 is the latest addition to the REMUS family which has been in operations for more than 25 years. It combines the reliability, simplicity and mission effectiveness that have defined the REMUS brand with modernized electronics, open-architecture interfaces and enhanced payload flexibility.
Designed to meet demand for affordable and adaptable autonomous underwater systems, REMUS 130 features a compact, two-person-portable design, operates at depths of up to 100 meters and provides up to 10 hours of endurance.
Field-swappable batteries further increase operational availability and mission readiness.
REMUS 130 is designed to support a broad spectrum of missions, including:
Oceanographic research and data collection
Offshore energy and infrastructure inspection
Search and rescue operations
Mine countermeasures
Environmental monitoring and seabed mapping
Navy Tests Dual-Use Laser that Beams Power and Counters Drone Threats in One System
BLUF: Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has demonstrated a laser system that can both transmit power wirelessly and defend against aerial threats, marking a significant step toward more flexible battlefield energy solutions.
The test showed that a single directed-energy platform can perform two critical military functions without requiring separate equipment.
Researchers beamed power across an airfield to a remote location and then quickly switched the same system to engage a simulated drone threat.
NRL worked alongside Boeing, the Army’s DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and stakeholders from the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army.
During the demonstration, a trailer-mounted laser transmitted energy from a standard military vehicle to specialized receivers positioned at a distant site. The setup delivered power without physical cables or traditional fuel logistics.
Officials see strong potential for expeditionary missions where reducing fuel consumption can improve both logistics and survivability.
Our Take: This would be a pretty impressive combination of capabilities and could be a real gamechanger for expeditionary operations
Navy Moves Closer to Pairing F-35C With LRASM Anti-Ship Missile
BLUF: The Navy has completed the first phase of the F-35C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) flight sciences test program, advancing efforts to equip the stealth fighter with a long-range maritime strike capability.
Featuring advanced sensors, autonomous targeting capabilities, and low-observable characteristics, LRASM is designed to hold high-value maritime targets at risk in contested environments.
As part of the two-year test phase, the LRASM underwent a series of integration flight tests to evaluate the aircraft’s handling characteristics while carrying the weapon externally across its flight envelope.
Having completed captive-carry testing, the program is expected to move into separation trials to assess safe weapon release, followed by guided weapon tests to evaluate the missile’s performance across the full engagement chain and, ultimately, a live-fire campaign.
Our Take: It’s good to see this happening since LRASM is a key contributor to maritime dominance, but it is still crazy the amount of time it takes to integrate a known weapon on a well-characterized platform. It would seem that between digital modeling and models from other munitions that have standardized interfaces, this could be significantly accelerated.
SASC Wants Navy to Develop New DDG(X) Destroyer in Tandem with Trump Battleship
BLUF: Senate authorizers want the Navy to continue pursuing the next-generation destroyer, in addition to the new Trump-class battleship.
The report language says the Navy needs DDG(X) so it has a platform to succeed the Flight I Arleigh Burke destroyers when they start leaving the fleet in the 2030s.
The Navy plans to buy the first battleship in the FY 2028 budget submission.
Plans for DDG(X) called for a new hull form because the Flight III Arleigh Burkes have limited space, weight, power and cooling margins.
Continuing with DDG(X) would force the Navy to make capability tradeoffs.
The SASC also wants the Navy to ink another Flight III multi-year procurement deal so it can keep buying Arleigh Burkes while it develops DDG(X) and BBG(X).
“Initial estimates of the unit cost of the BBG(X) are between $12.0 billion and $13.0 billion. At that price point, the Navy cannot afford to replace retiring DDG-51s with BBG(X) battleships on a one-for-one basis.” SASC Report
Our Take: This just makes sense since the longevity of the BBG(X) is tenuous depending on the views of the next administration. Most experts see the full set of requirements as overly ambitious and likely to result in fielding delays for only a small number of assets.
Congress Seeks to Limit Navy Vessels Built in Foreign Shipyards
BLUF: The Trump administration’s recent push to buy foreign-built warships is being waylaid by congressional defense committees who are seeking to limit the ability to tap overseas construction yards to build out America’s naval fleet.
A provision in the SASC markup of the NDAA would strip presidential waiver authority in Title 10 section 8679, that allowed the president to approve offshore ship construction under a vague description of “national security interest.”
Under the language of the markup, the defense secretary may arrange to “construct not more than two vessels for each class of covered vessels in a[n] [allied] foreign shipyard.”
“Covered vessels” listed within the bill’s language include only bulk fuel vessels and roll-on/roll-off ships.
US Marine F-35s Conduct Flight Operations on Finnish Roads
BLUF: Marine Corps F-35B Lightning IIs made a historic first impression on Finland this month, when the service’s air crews conducted a series of unorthodox flight operations from a highway in Tervo.
The aircraft, assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing’s Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 (VMFA-224), became the service’s first to deploy to the Scandinavian country as part of the NATO-led Exercise Ramstein Flag 2026.
The non-traditional Finnish highway operation was designed to test combat adaptability in an increasingly contested Arctic, the service said, with air command and control of the highway operations — and other air missions — coordinated from NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center in Bodo, Norway.
‘MUMS’ the word: Corps Stands Up First Ever Marine Unmanned Maintenance Squadron
BLUF: The Marine Corps on Tuesday stood up the service’s first ever unmanned maintenance squadron in a ceremony at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.
A subordinate unit of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Unmanned Maintenance Squadron 14, or MUMS-14, is now the Corps’ only current aviation detail built specifically to bring unmanned aviation maintenance to forward deployed combat theaters,
In that role, Marines will spearhead maintenance support for the service’s Group-5 unmanned aerial systems — namely, the MQ-9 Reaper — to enable multi-mission intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting across the Marine Air-Ground Task ForceS
Our hearts are with the families of the B-52 crew that was recently lost.
A Disciplined Case for The A-10 The Air Force Won’t Make
BLUF: While the Air Force delayed the retirement of the A-10, it shows a lack of commitment and the irreversible loss of A-10 combat capability is just months away.
This September, the A-10 Thunderbolt II was scheduled to make its final flight.
After much success (rescue ops, c-UAS and patrols) in Iran however, the Air Force reversed course and announced it would keep the jet flying through 2030.
While the Air Force changed the headline, it has yet to follow through with the harder financial commitment needed to preserve actual A-10 combat power.
Its FY27 budget, released shortly after the extension announcement, funds no additional A-10 modernization and cuts depot maintenance significantly.
By the end of this year, the A-10 will be without depot support, a training pipeline, weapons-school instruction, or operational-test capacity.
While this makes little sense given the reversed decision, it also underestimates a less known strength of the A-10 which is its role as a modernization platform.
The A-10 community has also quietly become one of the Air Force’s most effective rapid integration ecosystems.
It has been behind recent breakthrough integrations including AGR-20 APKWS, Small Diameter Bomb, ADM-160 MALD employment, beyond-line-of-sight comms, maritime strike weapons, and network-enabled C2.
The platform proving adaptable to several emerging operational problems and service priorities.
What The Air Force Should Do
Restore and protect the 357th Fighter Squadron at Davis-Monthan.
Stabilize the rest of the enterprise through the extension timeline.
Tie any future divestment to demonstrated replacement readiness, not the calendar.
Our Take: Everyone in the defense community should read this insightful article from Gus. His recommendations are on-point, and we only hope that the Air Force didn’t have time to fix FY27 since the appropriators approved its retirement in FY26. Like the Air Force fixed their decision on the E-7, we hope they take similar actions here.
While we agree with getting this reversed, we also think it’s time to move on to the next version of the A-10 that would allow an active production line that could scale when needed. There was a Light Attack Aircraft (LAA) program that had been underway to serve some of the same mission sets but got cancelled early. Given the value that the A-10 has shown the last couple years on counter drone operations in Israel and the multiple missions in Iran, we need to advocate for the return of LAA. That would allow the ANG units to stay current, keep the software team in-place and the pilot pipeline activated - while executing a smooth transition.
Why Readiness Matters
BLUF: The Air Force dominated execution and was instrumental in Iran, destroying every long-range radar and surface-to-air missile system, crushing its air force, and burying the product of its nuclear weapons program under tons of rubble. Yet as good as our Air Force has been, that performance masks readiness and capacity challenges currently plaguing the service – challenges that would make dominating a fight against a peer competitor problematic, particularly an extended campaign.
The truth is, the service is a shadow of its former self in both of those areas and DoW needs to both fund and direct the Air Force to significantly grow in size and re-hone readiness levels before we find ourselves at odds with a peer competitor.
The number of fighter, bomber and logistical support sorties flown by the Air Force in this conflict dwarf all other services combined.
The resounding success of those missions says a great deal about USAF’s ability to dominate a sophisticated, if second-rate military power.
Unfortunately, the challenges (from Russia, China, N Korea and non-state actors) are arguably greater than they were at any point since the start of World War II.
Our Take: We certainly agree, although we see long-term readiness improvements being accomplished through recapitalization rather than modernization. The A-10 replacement and NGAS would be great starts to show what’s possible - building off the success and practices of the CCA program.
RC-135 Rivet Joints Could Control Drones to Drastically Expand Collection Capabilities
BLUF: 3Harris wants to demonstrate the ability of the RC-135V/W Rivet Joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft to team up with uncrewed platforms using new deployment concepts.
Drones could soak up additional data and otherwise extend the reach of the airliner-sized Rivet Joints, while also helping keep the prized jets further away from threats.
This and other developments underway at L3Harris could open the door to further operational possibilities for the Rivet Joint fleet.
While the aircraft were actually birthed in the 60s and 70s from the Boeing line, from a mission system capability, they’re actually the youngest mission system across the entire Air Force.
Software development is on a spiral upgrade schedule, and the platform is regularly undergoing new updates and upgrades.
Our Take: As the CCA fleet expands and operates more autonomously from fighter aircraft, they will need to have mesh connectivity for rapidly sharing quickly expiring detection and tracking data. This approach makes a lot of sense.
MQ-9 Getting Airborne Early Warning Radar Is a Huge Deal
BLUF: The MQ-9 Reaper and its associated Predator-B family of drones are in an interesting spot these days. On one hand, they are receiving new, relevant capabilities and missions at an accelerating pace. On the other hand, their vulnerability to air defenses, not even modern ones, is glaring, with major losses in Iran and Yemen.
One new capability stands out from the rest that would give the MQ-9 extreme value today and for years to come.
This is turning the MQ-9 into a radar-toting airborne early warning (AEW) platform for detecting and tracking aircraft, drones, and missiles.
The MQ-9 sortie in question was the product of a partnership between General Atomics and Saab, with Saab, already a leader in AEW systems, providing the podded radar system named LoyalEye.
This initial test flight took place on May 19th, and a full demonstration of the pairing’s capabilities is planned for next year.
While the MQ-9 would not fully replace the need for the E-3 or E-7, for providing critical surveillance, especially in areas where there are gaps, or that just don’t require that level of support, the AEW-capable MQ-9 is a very attractive solution.
Space Force Awards $437.6M for First Protected Tactical SATCOM-Global Satellites
BLUF: Space Force has awarded contracts worth a combined $437.6M to Viasat Inc. and Intelsat General Communications LLC for the first operational satellites of the Protected Tactical SATCOM-Global (PTS-G) program
These are next-generation military communications architecture designed to provide resilient, anti-jam satellite communications for warfighters worldwide.
The firm-fixed-price contracts cover production of the program’s first two satellites, known collectively as Swarm 1, including spacecraft manufacturing, integration and testing, launch, and on-orbit checkout.
PTS-G is intended to strengthen the service's broader resilient satellite communications architecture by combining commercial innovation with military-protected communications capabilities.
The system is designed to support both legacy wideband users and newer Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW) users, providing secure communications in contested and denied environments.
DARPA Exploring Tech for Tactically Responsive Space Operations
BLUF: DARPA is scouting industry for technologies and concepts designed to restore space assets that are damaged or destroyed on orbit.
DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office published an RFI on Sam.gov soliciting industry solutions for the Rapid Reconstitution of Space Capabilities effort.
The program builds upon ongoing work within the Space Force to improve the Defense Department’s ability to quickly launch new space systems to replace those that have been damaged or destroyed by adversaries or in accidents.
In 2023, the service began the Victus demonstrations under the Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program — focused on launching small payloads onboard commercial rockets with just 24 hours’ notice.
The Space Force’s Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) is another effort that seeks to augment the Pentagon’s space-based capabilities during crisis or conflict through contracts with commercial vendors.
While the Space Force has touted the overall success of TacRS, there are still multiple technical, logistical and regulatory challenges that prevent the service from fully establishing a rapid space reconstitution capability.
The request outlines five general areas it is interested in: space vehicles, satellite payloads, launch vehicles, space vehicle-launch vehicle integration and concepts of operations.
“The end goal is to develop and deploy effective response mechanisms to rapidly restore critical services to minimum levels or higher, on tactical timelines of hours to weeks, in response to demand surge needs, lost assets resulting from potential adversaries’ [anti-satellite weapons] engagements, or orbital debris collisions.” RFI
Related Article: DARPA to explore ways to rapidly rebuild satellite networks if attacked
Sustained Maneuver Has a Propulsion Problem
BLUF: For years, space architecture was treated mostly as a question of placement: where to put a spacecraft, and how reliably it could hold position. A growing number of missions need to reposition, retask, inspect, avoid threats, persist, support logistics or simply preserve options as the operating environment changes.
The community is taking maneuver more seriously — and that shift is overdue.
However, the maneuver conversation still carries a blind spot: Propulsion is treated too generically.
The harder question is how much useful maneuver capability a space vehicle retains across the life of the mission.
A satellite that can complete a single transfer, one repositioning event or one contingency burn may still be badly matched to a mission that depends on repeated maneuvering over years.
That is the difference between maneuver and sustained maneuver.
Sustained maneuver means preserving useful maneuver decisions across the life of a mission. It is a practical way to describe missions that need more than a single burn or a one-time transfer.
Maneuver margin is the useful propulsion reserve that remains after the real mission has taken its toll.
The right starting point is the mission envelope. Mission owners, program offices, spacecraft primes, spacecraft companies and propulsion teams should ask:
How much delta-V is actually required, and over how many maneuvers?
How long must the system stay useful?
How much power is available, and how often must it restart?
How much propellant margin must survive planned operations?
What qualification evidence will the buyer trust, what integration burden can the spacecraft accept and which failure modes matter most?
Our Take: 100%. Given how space is evolving as a military domain, this is an increasingly important set of questions to ensure that critical capabilities launched (especially non-proliferated ones) can be resilient enough to survive through the set of scenarios that it may face in space and from adversaries.
Space Launch Complex 6 Being Modernized
With a grant issued by the Space Force in 2025, SpaceX is now modernizing the pad to support next generation spacelift operations.
Other Space Force News:
Strengthening the Front Line: Transforming the Japan Self-Defense Force for 21st Century Deterrence
Bryan Clark, David Byrd, Masashi Murano, Timothy Walton and Shane Dennin
BLUF: Japan’s National Defense Strategy aims to “shape a security environment that does not tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo by force and the Japan Ministry of Defense (JMOD) has increased defense spending by more than 50% the last 4 years however, it also needs an effective strategy and corresponding force design to translate these larger budgets into deterrence.
Instead of using higher budgets to pursue a larger version of today’s JSDF, the JMOD should pursue a force design that enables it to disrupt attacks, impose costs, and protract conflicts by leveraging uncrewed systems across domains and adopting adaptable hedge forces focused on key operational problems.
Wargames and analyses found that the JSDF could transition to such a force over the next decade within the 2026 funding levels and with likely personnel reductions of 10–15%. This force design would prioritize the following goals:
Enable complex anti-ship attacks by fielding distributed and relocatable ground-based long-range anti-ship and land-attack missile launchers that exploit Japan’s geography.
Defend islands and choke points with SHIELD hedge forces comprised of slow or short-range uncrewed systems across all domains that can target and attack ships and submarines.
Protect Japan’s sea lanes and maritime approaches by incorporating vertical launch system (VLS) missiles into each new submarine and fielding a new class of guided-missile submarines.
Threaten PLA strike capacity by establishing counterair hedge forces that combine uncrewed detection systems, ground-based surface-to-air missiles, and uncrewed targeting aircraft that can engage bombers and airborne early-warning aircraft as they exit Chinese airspace.
Improve Japan’s capacity for protraction by investing in airborne decoys to counter People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter attacks and hardened infrastructure and air defenses to protect relevant JSDF facilities.
Enhance adaptability by strengthening command, control, and communication (C3) resilience through commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) and decision support systems that can exploit the tactical options and kill chains in a larger, more heterogeneous JSDF.
Rebalance crewed air and naval forces toward personnel-efficient platforms for peacetime operations and survivable wartime platforms, such as guided-missile destroyers (DDGs), Mogami-class frigates (FFMs), submarines, and low-observable fighters.
Arianespace Successfully Launches 36 Additional Amazon Leo Satellites with an Ariane 64 Equipped with Advanced Boosters
BLUF: On June 17, 2026, Arianespace successfully placed into orbit 36 satellites for Amazon Leo with an Ariane 64 equipped for the first time with four advanced solid-propellant P160C boosters.
Amazon Leo is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite network, whose mission is to deliver fast, reliable internet to customers beyond the reach of existing networks.
The mission marks the third Ariane 6 launch dedicated to deploying the Amazon Leo constellation and is the eighth Ariane 6 launch and the third of the year.
Less than two years after its inaugural flight, Europe's launcher underwent its first major upgrade with the introduction of the P160C boosters.
This improvement increases the launcher's performance while maintaining its overall architecture
HENSOLDT and Fire Point Announce Strategic Partnership for System for Ballistic Missile Defense
BLUF: HENSOLDT and Fire Point, a leading Ukrainian defence-tech company developing and producing combat-proven UAV and missile systems for modern precision warfare, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for executing joint integration of field-proven and available components into a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system capable of detecting and intercepting ballistic missiles.
HENSOLDT is responsible for the production, testing and delivery of radars for the BMD system and is supporting the integration of them into the system.
Fire Point shall act as the prime contractor and is foreseen to have the overall design authority of the BMD system.
The company will produce, test and deliver their Fire Point FP-7 missiles including the launch and control of the systems.
In addition, Fire Point will integrate the main components into the system.
As Europe Rearms, ‘Wingman’ Aircraft Take Center Stage
BLUF: As the war in Ukraine in particular has underscored the growing importance of drones and electronic warfare, European and U.S. defense forces are rapidly developing their own AI-powered drones to complement their fighter jets and carry extra sensors, jammers and weapons.
In Berlin, four companies — Airbus, Boeing, Helsing and General Atomics — were touting their latest designs of the technology to Germany’s military and beyond.
Investment in the technology comes as Europe faces a debate over the value of building its own sovereign defense industry and reducing reliance on the U.S.
Germany and France this month shelved plans for a joint fighter jet but are now looking to salvage parts of the Future Combat Air System program by developing a related drone system and data network.
As it stands, wingman drones or aircraft have not yet arrived on the battlefield.
Boeing says its model can be in service for the German Luftwaffe by 2029.
Airbus’ model, the U760b Ravenstorm, won’t be available until the 2030s.
Lockheed Martin and Anduril are expected to display similar technologies at upcoming airshows, including Britain’s Farnborough airshow starting on July 20.
Taiwan Tests HIMARS Missiles on Island’s West Coast in Major Live-fire Drills
BLUF: Taipei showcased its new American missile launchers through numerous live-fire salvos in a drill this week that Taiwanese troops claimed demonstrated the system’s mobility and long-range strike capabilities.
Specifically, it fired its recently procured M142 High Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS).
Taiwan wants to field a force of 111 HIMARS through a planned order of 82 launchers announced last fall.
This week’s drill was part of a comprehensive series of exercises being held across Taiwan’s western coast involving missile and artillery systems.
How China’s Navy is Tightening the Noose on Taiwan
BLUF: Late last month, Chinese navy ships, including large guided-missile destroyers, were positioned all around Taiwan. This wasn’t a military drill intended to show force. In 2026, it is an ordinary day.
Chinese forces constantly fly, sail, probe and patrol close to Taiwan, signaling to the island’s 23 million people that Beijing’s hard-power buildup makes their resistance to a takeover futile.
Today, five or six Chinese warships surround Taiwan at almost all times, with the count frequently higher as other naval ships make intermittent visits.
China’s round-the-clock naval patrols offer its forces daily opportunities to gather data and experience in waters where they might one day fight.
A Strategic Blunder of Epic Proportion
BLUF: Europe is rearming at speed, investing heavily in its own industrial base, and building capabilities that once would have been purchased from the U.S. The U.S. is making a strategic mistake of historic proportion… one that risks shifting the center of gravity of the global defense industrial base across the Atlantic.
Ukrainian firms are producing high tech, low cost, combat validated systems at a pace that Western manufacturers burdened by bureaucracy, cost, and risk aversion cannot match.
At the start of the war, Ukraine guarded this IP closely. Today, Kyiv is granting “Strategic Partner” status to select allies overwhelmingly European industry.
While Europe integrates Ukrainian innovation into its industrial base, the United States is moving in the opposite direction.
The U.S. DoW is preparing a $1.5T budget request, much of it dedicated to rebuilding inventories and funding domestic R&D.
Meanwhile, Europe is acquiring combat tested capability at a fraction of the cost by partnering with Ukraine.
The U.S. is not losing influence in Europe because of policy disagreements.
It is losing because Europe is building a defense industrial model that is faster, cheaper, more adaptive, and increasingly independent.
Ukraine is the catalyst. Europe is the beneficiary. And unless Washington recalibrates, America will be the strategic loser.
New Unmanned Aircraft with 40-hour Endurance, 2,866-lb Payload Capacity Completes Assembly
BLUF: German company Aerodata AG completed the final assembly of a new UAS called AeroForce X prototype. The prototype’s first flight is scheduled to take place in Germany this year.
Aerodata AG also revealed that the MALE-class (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) UAS stands out in particular for its long endurance of up to 40 hours and a payload capacity of up to 1,300 kg.
Thanks to its modular platform design, AeroForce X can be flexibly configured and deployed in combination with existing manned reconnaissance aircraft for a wide range of missions.
“Now that final assembly has been successfully completed, we look forward to thoroughly testing the prototype during the upcoming test phases.” Ole Vörsmann, GM for Unmanned Systems
UK Orders Hundreds of German Propeller-less UUV
BLUF: A 132-pound underwater drone with no propeller can now sit on the seabed for three months listening for submarines with an AI trained on decades of ocean sound. Germany built it, and the UK just ordered a program around hundreds.
A Munich company Helsing thinks the future of the hunt looks less like a 6,900-ton warship and more like hundreds of 132-pound (60 kg) gliders drifting along at walking pace, each one running an AI that was trained the way you’d train a chatbot, except on decades of recorded ocean sound instead of internet text.
A Canadian hydrogen drone already parked on the seabed for 16 days straight to watch a single cable junction. What Helsing adds is volume: the Fathom is containerized, rail-launched from shore or from a ship, and designed from day one to be built in the hundreds rather than the dozens.
Scale is the whole argument. Helsing’s launch material describes hundreds of Fathoms deployed per mission, all running Lura locally, with a single operator at a maritime headquarters tasking and monitoring the lot.
USV Swarm Demonstrates Maritime Security Capabilities During Exercise Salaknib 26
BLUF: Soldiers assigned to the 25th Infantry Division partnered with Philippine Army forces and industry representatives during Exercise Salaknib 2026 to demonstrate how autonomous maritime systems can enhance security and protect critical transportation operations in contested environments.
At the center of the mission were USVs operated by soldiers assigned to the 125th Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion, 25ID.
They deployed a swarm of autonomous boats to establish a security screen across the waterway as a U.S. Army logistics support vessel approached the port.
New RapidStriker System Uses 360-degree Vision and Automated Fire to Neutralize Drones
BLUF: Thales RapidStriker brings counter-drone protection closer to frontline forces through vehicle-mounted deployment.
The new capability combines sensors, automated fire control and multiple weapon options in a package built to move alongside frontline forces.
RapidStriker can engage more than just drones. The system also provides protection against low-flying helicopters operating close to frontline forces.
RapidStriker gives operators several ways to engage a target. It pairs its sensors with automated fire control before cueing the most suitable effector for the mission. Operators can deploy guided or unguided 68 mm and 70 mm rockets. Small-caliber cannons and remotely operated munitions.
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Of the several reasons why I've been against a $1.5T defense budget, what we're seeing play out with reconciliation is near the top of my list. It boxes in the Department, and Pentagon leaders are now facing suboptimal choices as a result of betting big without first fully understanding the table dynamics. (Meanwhile, DoE's Genesis Mission, which is one of the most promising AI projects in the world, faces budgetary strangulation at birth--with costs well under $1B for the entire thing. Not good, Mav, not good.)
DPA for accelerated munitions production sounds promising, but every company involved wants/needs a greater upfront funding commitment by the Pentagon before scaling. Big capex bills and long-term hiring commitments require shared agreements between the Pentagon and industry.
Huge fan of the RJ, but adding a drone mission would change how that platform is viewed. Crossing the Title 50 ISR & Title 10 streams in this way would shift it into a different category, with lots of potential unintended consequences. Worth exploring, but be careful what you ask for.
excellent article. good data, well presented