The biggest stories across the Department and the defense industry this week:

• Pointed op-eds on cost memos, innovation funding, and disruptive tech.

• Strong demand and industry advancements in hypersonics

• Army advances many UGVs and nuclear microreactors

• CNO status report, Navy gets two new ships, a boatload of new missiles.

• Air Force puts loads of funds into legacy modernization, F-35 O&S comes down

• Space Force pushing for more commercial use, SpaceX/Rocket Lab get contracts

• China continuing to build long-range missiles & Russia builds drone launch pads

• Congress has little time to pass budget and progress seems stalled for $1.5T

The Pentagon’s War on Commercial Defense Investment

William Greenwalt

BLUF: A memo signed by Deputy Secretary Feinberg on “Supplier Cost and Pricing Transparency” may be the worst and most damaging piece of defense acquisition and industrial policy written in the last 50 years.

• If not quickly modified or rescinded, this memo will have immense damaging effects on the US’ future ability to compete in the coming age of modern warfare.

• There is a real need to quickly produce more systems, many of which were designed and first built in the last century.

• The problem is this has to be done through an industrial base that has over the decades been coddled by government ineptitude, sheltered from market forces, and constrained by low demand and funding.

• Pentagon’s already large, overbearing government unique access to contractor internal accounting systems and management data, presumably with an aim to “better” manage these companies from the halls of the Pentagon.

• The problem is the Feinberg memo applies these requirements to all defense contractors and subcontractors, save for those supplying items bought at your local Walmart.

• Why this is so significant is Congress and past Administrations have over the last four decades exempted real commercial companies from these government unique requirements because they served as barriers to the Pentagon’s accessing commercial innovation.

• We were on the road to commercial innovation with Secretary Hegseth’s announcement in November to embrace past acquisition reforms designed to innovate at speed by emulating Silicon Valley and how once the Department innovated in the 1950s. Unfortunately, that effort was just completely undermined.

• The popping noise we are hearing is the Feinberg memo deflating the prospects of more venture capital and commercial defense investment and solutions coming to disrupt the Pentagon.

• It intends to manage Silicon Valley like it manages Lockheed Martin—through socialist means not market ones. As the Pentagon myopically focuses ever more on the problem of producing more 1990s systems, the release of the Feinberg memo drives home that fact.

America’s Missing Military Revolution

Doug Beck

BLUF: When Pentagon officials identify a problem, it takes years to identify and acquire a solution to meet defense requirements. By then, the solution is outdated. Despite real progress, the U.S. is still not changing this process fast enough, or at sufficient scale, to keep America safe in an increasingly dangerous world.

• Relentless private-sector competition has spawned new technologies, but the military cannot buy them, much less do so at scale. The entrenched, byzantine system for acquiring things is why the most sophisticated country in human history is at risk of no longer having the world’s most sophisticated military.

• The bureaucratic way the U.S. buys and deploys military technology is, like the rigid, Soviet-style five-year plans that even China and Russia have long jettisoned.

• The breakneck pace of technological innovation makes it possible to roll out new autonomous weapons, AI algorithms, and other sophisticated systems.

• For Washington and its allies to deter its adversaries from aggression, they must harness the power of commercially derived technology.

• To deliver real, enduring change, the entire system needs to be transformed. The Pentagon, Congress, and the private sector need to get comfortable, together, taking risks, making mistakes, and quickly become adept at innovating at scale.

• The Pentagon’s risk-averse culture, reinforced by rules established by Congress, encumbers every stage of development, procurement, and integration process.

• Perhaps most damaging of all, the budgeting process established by Congress and the DoW locks in specific product designs at least two years in advance.

• It is nearly impossible for the Pentagon to make bets on truly new technologies or adapt at the constantly accelerating speed of war.

• Even after Pete Hegseth’s November call to reward outcomes and risk-taking rather than adherence to process, the Pentagon’s performance incentives remain structured around compliance, prescribed milestones, and avoiding cost overruns.

• Between 2017 and 2023, DIU delivered solutions at a success rate of over 50% across hundreds of projects and helped innovative companies such as Anduril get off the ground. It brought in mission-planning tools, drones, counter-drone tech, and space launch capabilities.

• DIU in 2023 moved out on five pillars to include embedding in each combatant command, partner directly with each Service, integrate the innovation community, ensure connectivity to the tech sector and remove barriers, and build relationships with allies and partners to grow stronger together.

• Commercial firms are investing far more in defense innovation than at any time since the early Cold War. In 2025, VC firms invested between $30B in defense tech alone and $50B if dual-use companies are included, with over $35B in 2026 so far.

• Even with all the expanded authorities, executive orders, and new policies, 1-3% of the U.S. defense budget is spent on truly innovative technologies.

• DIU’s budget is around 1/10th of 1% of total defense spending.

• Only about 1/3rd of 1% of contracts written are OTAs, whether from DIU or elsewhere, representing < 3% of new funding commitments.

• The U.S. should reinforce and scale its early successes in accessing, prototyping, delivering, and integrating commercially derived technology. DIU should remain small, but empowered to serve as the vanguard of change.

• Congress should thus carve out 20% of research and procurement budget for each of the services and require it to be spent on solutions in areas such as autonomous systems, AI, energy, biotech, space, cyber, advanced manufacturing, and quantum computing.

• Within these portfolios of record, the services should have the freedom that today’s DIU has to switch from product to product, version to version, and from prototype to operational fielding without having to go back to Congress.

• Alongside this new flexibility, the services should be required to provide detailed, real-time reporting that shows how they use this money and offer frequent updates, ensuring appropriate oversight for Congress and the American people.

• The DoW needs to reduce the cost and increase the speed of acquiring more traditional platforms, and the commercial sector can assist here, by providing components, materials, and advanced manufacturing techniques.

• Recruiting patriotic top tech talent willing to take a pay cut will require a major overhaul of the way the DoW conducts hiring and thinks about talent.

• DoW officials and Congress, working with the private sector, must take appropriate financial, process, and reputational risks today to avoid taking more dangerous risks to military missions, to the troops, and to the nation later.

Our Take: Doug hit the nail on the head. DoD and Congress must commit a significant percentage of the budget to acquire and operate a hedge force. One that can tap leading tech companies to deliver meaningful capabilities at scale in the near term, and iterate as threats and tech evolve. The real breakthrough is not another innovation organization or acquisition pathway, but creating protected portfolios with the funding flexibility, incentives, and accountability to routinely move from promising tech to operational scale. Doug is right that without meaningful PPBE and JCIDS reforms alongside acquisition, today’s pockets of innovation will remain exceptions rather than becoming the way the DoW operates. Recommend reading his full article.

The Defense-Tech Bubble is Headed for Consolidation

Jordan Blashek

BLUF: Hundreds of billions of dollars have poured into defense tech over the past several years. As a result, new defense-tech companies are launching every day. Whenever that much capital chases a single sector, you create the conditions for a bubble.

• Defense-tech startups raising Series A rounds at $300M or $400M valuations with no recurring revenue, no meaningful long-term contracts, and, in many cases, little more than a vision.

• Of the $1.5T budget request for FY27, RDT&E and Procurement is $760B. $280B depends on reconciliation. In that $480B, most modernization dollars are already spoken for in programs of record that are sole sourced or closed to new entrants.

• The contestable slide of the pie is $54B for autonomous systems and $39B for drone procurement. Those are requests and appropriated dollars will likely flow mostly to established players.

• In FY25, obligations to all VC and PE backed national security companies =$4.3B.

  Nearly $50B in VC was invested last year. $10 in for every $1 out. The math simply doesn’t support the sky-high valuations today.

• Government doesn’t want to manage 100s of niche vendors. It prefers working with a small number of trusted, reliable prime contractors and systems integrators.

• Eventually, there will be a reckoning. And my bet is that it’s coming in the next 18 months. What consolidation will look like:

  • At the top of the market, there will be mergers of mutual convenience among well-positioned peers.

  • Next, recapitalizations driven by excessive valuations.

  • Then acquisitions by the primes and by the new mega-startups.

  • Then the rollups by PE firms to build platforms around anchor companies.

• A test for who survives

  • Do you have real revenue?

  • Do you own your customer relationships?

  • Does your technology work reliably in the field?

  • Do your unit economics scale?

  • Do you have enough runway?

  • Four or five yeses, and you’re in a great position to scale.

  • Two or three, and you should be looking to take aggressive action now, and potentially to merge from strength. Fewer than two, you’re selling a story

Our take: Jordan’s analysis reinforces what we found in Are the Tech Bros Blockheads?: private capital and defense-tech valuations have raced far ahead of the Pentagon’s actual spending behavior, with most meaningful procurement dollars still flowing through established programs and primes. Consolidation is therefore not necessarily a failure of defense tech. It may be the healthy next phase that separates companies with real customers, scalable production, and durable warfighting value from those built primarily on expectations of future Pentagon demand.

A Two-Year Sprint to Rebuild the American Arsenal and Deter China

Rush Doshi, Erin Dumbacher, William Henagan, Michael Horowitz

BLUF: The U.S. weapons arsenal has been depleted and no longer has the capacity to deter a Chinese attack against Taiwan. In order to prepare for future conflicts in the South China Sea and elsewhere, the U.S. should undertake reforms of its defense industrial base to focus on the scaling of precise mass systems.

• To address this gap in the near term, the DoD and Congress must implement far-reaching reforms to enable the production, acquisition, and deployment of “precise mass” systems: an emerging class of military capabilities that includes drones, sensors, and enabling technologies.

• Precise mass systems can be manufactured cheaply, fielded rapidly, expended freely in combat, and sustained readily at scale in wartime.

• To fill the gap amid China’s rapid military buildup, the U.S. military must acquire precise mass at scale.

• Unlike traditional munitions, there is a concrete path to scaling precise mass. The Pentagon must spend appropriated funds and sign contracts to buy precise mass systems now, prioritizing speed, scale, and “good enough” capabilities over process and the usual “exquisite” capabilities—those that are technologically sophisticated, expensive, and hard to produce.

• If war with China comes in the next two years, victory could depend on spending already-appropriated funds more quickly, relaxing procurement rules, and using every available industrial policy tool to expand production rapidly.

• Efforts to produce more high-end, legacy capabilities, such as submarines, fighter jets, and exquisite munitions, remain relevant for an invasion or blockade of Taiwan, particularly when fielded in a “high-low” mix with expendable capabilities.

• Legacy systems alone cannot provide enough combat power within two years to defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Long production timelines, material shortages, workforce constraints, and other bottlenecks prevent exquisite capabilities from being scaled quickly enough.

• Washington needs to immediately put production of precise mass on a wartime footing. To deter China and defeat an attack if deterrence fails the U.S. needs to build weapons faster, give manufacturers greater flexibility, align military goals with available resources, cut procurement red tape, and secure the supply chains required to sustain production.

Getting Creative About the Munitions Crisis

First Breakfast

BLUF: Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg sent a memo to industry leaders giving them 21 days to submit plans to “drive significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities. We asked for ideas.

• Open the Magazine: Compulsory Licensing for Mass Production

• The Real Munitions Bottleneck Is Qualification, Not Capacity

• Stop Lighting Money on Fire

• Let ‘Em Build

• It’s Not Easy, But It’s Not Rocket Science

• We Need a Materials Manhattan Project

• Outlaw the Obvious

• Form the Army Munitions Production Corps

• Earning by Doing

• Forge the (Allied) Arsenal of Democracy

Our Take: Read this entire piece, it provides some creative thinking and cogent recommendations for solving this issue.

Pentagon Counter-drone Task Force Preps Shoot-off for Directed Energy Prototypes

BLUF: A pilot program run by the Pentagon’s counter-drone task force is planning to live fire directed-energy weapons later this year, which could be bought on the spot if they perform well.

• JIATF-401 is going to run a directed energy shoot-off in December.

• The pilot program selected five different military facilities to test out directed energy systems for counter-drone missions.

• Officials are interested in directed-energy weapons, particularly lasers and high-powered microwaves, for their ability to cheaply and effectively defeat unmanned systems that have buzzed domestic military facilities and attacked US installations abroad.

• Officials are still exploring how they can effectively use relatively nascent directed-energy technology, including for more challenging scenarios like homeland defense that come with greater guardrails.

“A promising demonstration could result in a purchase order that allows us to start building the production lines to get these systems into the field. We need to develop the tactics, techniques, and procedures to be able to use them on a base in a way that doesn’t impede the critical functions of that base.” BG Matt Ross, director of the Pentagon’s JIATF-40

Related: U.S. military to host directed energy ‘shoot-off’ amid governmentwide counter-drone push

New Software-Defined Power System Delivers up to 60% Lower Military Fuel Use

BLUF: Chariot Defense has won a $7.6M DIU contract to deploy its software-defined power systems with U.S. Army brigades. The deployment will put their Amphora systems into the field this fall under the Portable Resilient Integrated Storage Module (PRISM) program.

• Amphora acts as an intelligent control layer between power sources and battlefield equipment. It can connect with tactical generators, solar arrays, and military vehicles.

• Software then manages how electricity moves between those sources and connected equipment. The system works more like a power management computer than a conventional battery pack.

• The platform can move energy in both directions and route available power where it is needed. Chariot designed it to work with existing military hardware. Amphora also collects energy data for command and control networks. That could give commanders a clearer picture of how deployed units produce and consume electricity.

• Chariot says Amphora can reduce fuel consumption by up to 60% in combat scenarios. The system can support silent operations for up to 36 hours.

Two Keys to Accelerating System Modernization in the DoW

Forterra

BLUF:

• For nearly 20 years (OIF/OEF), the DoW had to put significant modernization initiatives aside to focus on funding a war being fought across two fronts.

• In the last five years, the DoW’s modernization efforts have been somewhat limited. Operation Epic Fury, is being fought with numerous vehicles and weapons systems that were originally designed, developed, and deployed by the military’s industry partners many decades ago.

• In addition to the increased number of systems and domains, the DoW also has to modernize on two levels.

  • This includes things like weapons systems, vehicles, sensors, C2 networks, logistics systems, cybersecurity, and other mission-critical systems.

  • The institutional backbone, the processes, procedures, and approaches for how those things are used. This includes adopting modern approaches to testing, digital engineering, and application development processes, embracing cloud infrastructure, improving cybersecurity posture, and modernizing other enterprise IT systems that underpin DoW operations.

• Moving the needle on modernization requires resources, focus and institutional capacity to implement so many changes at once, all of which are finite.

• Even substantial defense budgets are quickly consumed by expensive, complex weapons systems. The larger challenge is the DoW's ability to prioritize, absorb and execute modernization efforts across countless competing priorities.

• There are commercial partners that are looking at fundamental problems, challenges, and requirements across the government and attacking them from the ground up, which is allowing them to identify new approaches and solutions.

• Embracing a commercial off-the-shelf solution that is 90% or 80% towards meeting all requirements and working to adapt it to meet that last 10% or 20% will enable the DoW to modernize its systems more quickly and at a lower cost.

• As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The DoW should be making big bets on particularly essential capabilities and modernization initiatives.

Our Take: Yes, we must stop funding duct tape for America’s Ancient Arsenal and shift funding to modern tech and systems.

Judge Blocks Pentagon’s Anthropic Blacklisting

BLUF: U.S. District Judge Rita Lin vacated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s designation of Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk” and related directives that barred federal agencies and defense contractors from using the company’s products.

• The court found the measures were unlawful retaliation for Anthropic’s public positions on military use of its models (including limits on lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of Americans), violated the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment due process, and were arbitrary and capricious under the APA.

• Lin wrote that “the empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” and that Anthropic did not meet the statutory definition of a supply-chain risk.

• The Pentagon is not required to use Anthropic’s models; an appeal is expected.

Pentagon Wants New Family of Maneuverable Hypersonic Weapons

BLUF: The Pentagon is preparing to build a new family of hypersonic weapons designed to maneuver past enemy air defenses, and it wants defense contractors to help design them.

• The Strategic Capabilities Office published a special notice on a classified Industry Day set for Sep 14-16 in Chantilly, Virginia on a family of next-generation, maneuverable, and precise hypersonic weapons capable of defeating advanced defensive architectures.

• Multiple programs will fall under the effort, each using different stand-off ranges, booster sizes, and payload packages to strike a variety of target types.

• A hypersonic weapon instead flies low enough and fast enough to occupy a gap that neither ground-based air defenses nor space-based interceptors currently cover well.

• SCO plans to award multiple Phase 1 Concept Development Other Transactions for Prototype, a contracting mechanism authorized under 10 U.S.C. § 4022 that lets the Department of War move faster than traditional procurement rules allow.

• SCO is a Pentagon office built to move fast. Its mission is identifying, analyzing, and prototyping disruptive uses of new and existing systems, with a goal of fielding capabilities within three to five years rather than the decade or more a standard acquisition program can take.

Hypersonics, Rocket Startup Ursa Major to Go Public in $2.3B Deal

BLUF: Ursa Major, a defense startup specializing in hypersonics and solid rocket motors, today announced plans to take the company public next year in a $2.3B deal.

• The agreement involves a merger with the publicly traded Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company backed by Inflection Point Asset Management, which works to take companies public.

• The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

• Since its founding in 2015, Ursa Major has raised more than $380M in private capital while also garnering investment from the DoW to develop technology for solid rocket motors, space systems and hypersonics.

• Last month, the company announced a $10M award from the Navy to advance its MK 104 solid rocket motor through critical design review and static fire.

• In February, Ursa Major unveiled a new hypersonic missile system named HAVOC that they plan to mostly manufacture in-house for around $3M per unit

“For eleven years, Ursa Major has invested in the hard work behind that outcome: propulsion, manufacturing, testing, qualification and flight. This transaction will help us turn that foundation into the production capacity our customers need. Becoming a public company aligns with our high standard of transparency and accountability, strengthening our ability to deliver responsibly for the warfighter over the long term.” Chris Spagnoletti, Ursa Major CEO

Hypersonic Systems Manufacturer Opens Sixth US Factory to Boost Output

BLUF: Ursa Major opened a facility in Longmont, CO to take over production of spacecraft avionics and in-space propulsion systems.

• Moving this work from the company’s Berthoud headquarters will also create more manufacturing room there for liquid rocket engines, hypersonic systems, and solid rocket motors.

• The Longmont site includes dedicated welding and manufacturing laboratories, an environmental testing lab, an ISO 7 hard-walled clean room, and an adjoining ISO 8 gowning room.

• Ursa Major said the site will consolidate production of its avionics and integrated in-space propulsion systems. The latter include propellant tanks, thrusters, and complete propulsion packages that allow spacecraft to maneuver after reaching orbit.

• Programs expected to benefit include its Hadley and Draper liquid rocket engines, the HAVOC Missile System, and its expanding solid rocket motor portfolio.

• Longmont becomes Ursa Major’s sixth US location. The company now operates three Colorado sites in Berthoud, Longmont, and Galeton; two Ohio sites in Youngstown and Boardman; and an office in Washington, DC.

The Pentagon’s Cheapest Weapon Is Its Own Name

Michael Gilroy

BLUF: Designating defense manufacturing regions would cost almost nothing and organize what appropriations cannot buy.

• The DoW could organize hundreds of regional economies around wartime production, and it could do it for roughly what a good-sized conference costs. The authority has been sitting on the books for years.

• What the Pentagon has to do is name things: publish a standard that says what a defense manufacturing region is, designate every region that meets it, and give each one a person inside the building to call. The federal government has never had a cheaper way to organize its regions. It has just never used it.

• Manufacturing labor is stubbornly local. Nobody drives 120 miles each way to pull wire. About forty miles is the practical edge of a manufacturing labor market. Every workforce solution needs to be built inside that circle.

• The Pentagon cannot stand up three hundred local training programs. What it can do is cause three hundred localities to build their own.

• The Pentagon is now creating longer term contracts to preserve its supply-chain, it needs to do the same for workforce.

• Congress already supplied the authority in the Industrial Base Fund statute (10 U.S.C. 4817), which lists the defense industrial workforce next to castings, forgings, and machine tools.

• A public standard, built on data anyone can check, reproducible enough that a region can compute where it stands. Designation for every region that clears the bar, which is another way of saying the Department picks no winners, caps no cohort, and promises nobody a dime. No new layer of bureaucracy either.

• The cost is a small program office and some convenings, a mere rounding error beside the $8.4B Congress added above the president's request in 2026.

• Private money is moving toward these industries at a scale not seen in a generation. JPMorganChase alone has committed up to $1.5T to industries it deems critical to national security.

Our Take: This is a solid strategy that we hope our readers in USW(A&S)/IBP and Service equivalent invite Michael to discuss the details further with the appropriate stakeholders to go execute.

SBA and DoW Establish Smaller War Plants Commission

BLUF: The US Small Business Administration and DOW announced an initiative to expand American military capacity, capability, and resilience by establishing the Smaller War Plants Commission (SWPC).

• The Commission will marshal federal resources to expand production capacity, eliminate burdensome regulations, accelerate innovation, and provide targeted capital and support to small business suppliers.

• Together, the agencies are putting the full weight of the federal government behind the small businesses that comprise more than 70% of the defense industrial base — ensuring the manufacturers, suppliers, and innovators that support our warfighters have the resources to build, grow, and keep America’s military the strongest in the world.

• The newly established Smaller War Plants Commission serves as the federal government’s central coordinating body to expand the defense industrial base by investing in small suppliers.

• The Commission will develop a comprehensive inventory of small business production capacity for the Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network (CRMN).

• Both agencies will work to identify and eliminate costly or complex regulations that impede small manufacturers and deploy support to clear operational bottlenecks.

“Since our nation’s earliest days, American battle readiness has run through small businesses — from the local factories to the labs that forge the Arsenal of Freedom. But over the last fifty years, foolish trade deals and globalist policies shipped American jobs and manufacturing power overseas — eroding the domestic productive capacity that underpins American military might and surrendering our critical supply chains to China.” Kelly Loeffler, SBA Administrator

“The American military is already the strongest fighting force the world has ever known. President Trump has made clear that we will keep it that way — not by accepting a hollowed-out industrial base, but by building an arsenal that can outproduce, out-innovate, and outlast any adversary,” Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War

The L3Harris Shake-Up Is an Opportunity to Bet on Missile Rearmament

BLUF: The abrupt departure of L3Harris’ CEO has landed the defense company’s shares in the discount bin. But the company will be indispensable to rebuilding the stock of U.S. missiles, making the decline a rare buying opportunity.

• L3Harris shares are down roughly 11% this year, underperforming a basket of its big U.S. defense prime peers by more than 20 percentage points.

• Its shares now trade at less than 16 times forward free cash flow, by far the cheapest in and a third lower than the basket of defense primes.

• The company recently postponed a planned spinoff of its prized missile business that makes solid rocket motors—a key component of interceptors—to at least mid-2027, citing unfavorable market conditions.

• Smaller military-tech stocks haven’t fared well this year, a bad sign for a market debut. But the spinoff was supposed to be a catalyst that would unlock value within L3Harris, so the postponement wasn’t well received by investors.

• The company’s fundamentals still look solid, though. L3Harris alongside Northrop Grumman, is one of only two companies that make solid rocket motors at scale.

• The company also has a highly profitable communication segment, with operating margins of 25%.

• In all, L3Harris expects its top line to grow to $27B in 2028, representing an organic compound annual growth rate of 8%.

Other Defense Industry News

• REGENT Craft Raises $240M Series B

• Drone companies, admin leaders meet for first White House ‘Drone Dominance’ meeting

• ACMI Launches $3M Horizon Manufacturing Cup Competition for Innovative Manufacturing and Hardware Companies

DOW Critical Mineral Deals

• DOW Announces a $750M Investment as Part of a $1.55B Initiative to Secure Critical Rare-Earth Elements From Serra Verde.

• DOW Announces a $100M Follow-on Equity Investment in Atalco to Secure the Sole Remaining Domestic Alumina Refinery

• DOW Announces $35.6 Million Strategic Equity Investment in Trilogy Metals to Secure Critical Copper, Cobalt, and Germanium Supplies in Northwest Alaska

Three Initiatives Causing Industry New Concerns About DoD Acquisition Reforms

BLUF: DoW’s third message to industry since early May is prompting many contractors to strongly doubt whether Secretary Pete Hegseth’s goal of revitalizing the defense industrial base still is a priority.

• The Aug. 18 memo on cost and pricing is the latest example in the last three months of the Pentagon adding more compliance and complexity to contractors.

• Experts stay this memo along with a July 31 open letter from Duffey and Michael Powers (comptroller), and Duffey’s May 4 memo on Contractor Facilitization Costs, will achieve the opposite effect of what Hegseth called for in November.

• Taken together, industry and acquisition experts say DoD is sending a mixed message at best, and at worst, creating disincentives for companies to join or even stay in the defense industrial base over the long term.

“These memos go in opposite direction of what Secretary Hegseth said in November 2025. These send a signal that DoD doesn’t trust industry and that this is an adversarial relationship. DoD put out all of those memos on speed, innovation and expanding the DIB. But all of this flies in face of that. These new memos either show a lack of understanding of their impact on the initiatives or a lack of understanding of all other things already in place to guard against unreasonable pricing.” David Berteau, a former DoD acquisition executive and long-time procurement expert.

Our Take: The demand for detailed costs data has always been a mystery to us throughout our acquisition careers as we were forced to include them in contracts but understood that no one was using them in a value-added way. The cost estimating community loves them because it gives them historical information they can use for estimating another program (which rarely actually works). For execution purposes, they are mostly worthless and there are other measures (software metrics, milestones etc) that are much better for PMs to focus on to resolve delays or quality issues. The bottom line is that these reports are an expensive burden, even for the largest primes, and will not meaningfully contribute to better decisions. A better approach (since we know the costs of these programs without special reports) is to have continuous competition or have vendors submit alternative proposals for an ongoing effort to identify higher value options that could be adopted instead. That’s how you increase value, not through detailed cost reporting.

Office of Strategic Capital Posts Application for National Security Fund Finance Program

BLUF: OSC has announced the National Security Fund Finance (NSFF) program and it is live on their website.

• OSC’s National Security Fund Finance program aims to provide capital support to credit funds addressing shortages, gaps, and vulnerabilities in critical minerals vital to United States national security.

• OSC’s mission is to advance these strategic interests by providing direct loans and deploying other financial tools. The NSFF program acts as the fund-level financing solution to accomplish that goal.

Stop Digitally Paving Cow Paths

David Kuroda

BLUF: There is a failure pattern that defense acquisition professionals know well. Organizations buy modern software, point it at an outdated workflow, and call the result digital transformation.

• In his 1990 Harvard Business Review article, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate,” Hammer urged leaders to stop paving cow paths.

• The image endures because it is true. A cow path is a route worn by habit. Paving it does not create a better road. It only hardens an inefficient one.

• The modern version is easy to spot. A program office buys an enterprise business system, then spends years customizing it to preserve old forms, old approvals, old reports, and old local practices.

  • The form becomes a screen.

  • The routing slip becomes workflow.

  • The spreadsheet becomes a custom report.

  • The paper folder becomes a repository.

  • The process is not reengineered. It is simply digitized in place.

• The cost shows up later. Customization drives up implementation expenses, expands testing, complicates cybersecurity patches, slows upgrades, increases training burdens, and locks the organization into legacy practices.

• The root cause usually is not technical. It is resistance to change disguised as a requirement. The objections are familiar: We have always done it this way. We are different. Our process is special. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not.

• For defense business systems, business process reengineering cannot be ceremonial. It must come before automation, requirements finalization, software configuration, and major reorganization.

• Weak business process reengineering shows up later as over-customization.

• A commercial system comes with standard workflows, data structures, controls, reports, and integration patterns. The organization then asks the vendor or integrator to bend the system around local practices.

• Some customization is unavoidable in government (statutes, security, auditability) but not every local variation is mission essential.

• The cost compounds quickly. Custom code must be designed, tested, secured, and maintained. Unique interfaces must be monitored. Custom reports must be reconciled. Modified workflows must be retested after upgrades.

• Security patches become more complicated because local changes can affect configured logic. Training gets harder because users are not learning the product; they are learning a local variant. It all starts to add up.

For defense acquisition leaders, the lesson is direct. Do not reorganize before understanding the work. Do not automate before redesigning the process. Do not customize a defense business system to protect every local practice. And do not mistake movement on an organization chart for mission improvement.

Our Take: Read this entire article if you have any interest in defense reform because David really nails it here and the impacts of the mindset he describes permeates everything else in the department. It’s emblematic. For business systems, it requires heroes in the functional communities to challenge their own folks and say we are going to evolve even if it’s painful for a period of time.

CenCore Unveiling Defense-Contractor Collaborative in Utah

BLUF: CenCore Group will on Friday unveil the Integrated Warfighter Ecosystem, a coalition of 150 businesses it has networked to win defense and intelligence-community contracts and arm U.S. troops with the best available gear.

• A vast majority of IWE members are small to midsize businesses. Many are veteran-owned. And some have never even worked with the Defense Department.

• Their product lines comprise both hardware and software: autonomy, command-and-control, counter-drone, energy, manufacturing.

“To provide the best of, from a solutions perspective, you’ve got to work together. You have to collaborate. And so the IWE exists to enable that collaboration.” CenCore chief executive Adam Fife

Bradley Fighting Vehicle Lugging Load Of Swarming Ground Drones Is A Sign Of What’s To Come

BLUF: Army soldiers used a Bradley Fighting Vehicle as a carrier for FireAnt UGV during a recent test exercise. The small 4×4 UGVs can be configured as one-way attack munitions, as well as for EW, surveillance and reconnaissance, and other missions. Bradleys acting as transports and controllers for swarms of UGVs like the FireAnt could open up important new operational possibilities.

• Swarmbotics AI, the developer of the FireAnt, shared a video showing the Bradley with five of the UGVs attached to its side.

• The footage was taken during Pegasus Charge 3, the third iteration of a 1st Cavalry Division-led test exercise series. The division is one of the operational formations supporting the Army’s larger Transformation In Contact (TIC) modernization initiative.

• Units assigned to the 1st Cavalry have been testing and evaluating various new weapon systems and other capabilities through Pegasus Charge events and other exercises.

• xTech is an in-house Army technology accelerator that regularly hosts “innovation challenges” to support new developments that could be of interest to the service.

• FireAnt is designed to be readily reconfigurable for different missions using modular payloads. The anti-armor configuration, which arms the UGV with an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) warhead, has received the most attention to date.

• In this role, FireAnt has to get close to its target to be effective. Swarming capability would be very beneficial here for overwhelming defenders, as well as just launching attacks on large groups of tanks and other armored vehicles across a broader area.

Our Take: We are very bullish on systems like these to shape the future of ground warfare. It is very exciting to see this technology emerge and must be frightening for adversaries to see a swarm of these converge on their position.

Army Tests Robot That Takes Counter-drone Sensing Closer to the Battlefield

BLUF: L3Harris Technologies and ARX Robotics have demonstrated a robotic ground vehicle carrying a counter-drone sensing system during the US Army’s Project Convergence-Capstone 6 experimentation campaign.

• The concept is relatively straightforward. Instead of placing soldiers and EW equipment near a likely drone threat, put the sensor on a remotely controlled robot and send it forward.

• For the demonstration, L3Harris mounted its CORVUS-RAVEN counter-drone capability on ARX Robotics UK’s GEREON uncrewed ground vehicle.

• The system was used to explore how mobile robotics could extend the reach of passive drone detection into forward or hazardous areas while operators remained elsewhere in the battlespace.

• The demonstration brought together two different technologies designed around adaptability. GEREON is ARX Robotics’ modular ground platform, built to carry different mission payloads. In this case, that payload was L3Harris’ counter-drone system.

• CORVUS-RAVEN is designed around an open architecture and can generate TAK-compatible messages for integration with C2 and battle-management applications.

Army Launches Flagship Strategic Capital Initiative with FedEx Dataworks to Modernize Logistics Infrastructure

BLUF: The Army announced its newest project under the Army’s Strategic Capital Initiative — a landmark collaboration with a FedEx Dataworks-led team of logistics and technology experts, to undertake a sweeping modernization of its domestic non-tactical logistics networks, supply chain procedures and organic industrial base sites.

• To meet 21st century threats, the Army is accelerating modernization through the SCI. This initiative centers on aligning the Army’s most acute, strategic needs with privately investable, commercial models to rapidly scale critical infrastructure upgrades without waiting years for traditional procurement cycles and maximizing value to the taxpayer, industry and the Army.

• In collaboration with the FedEx-led team, the Army aims to create a predictive, intelligent logistics network to optimize materiel management and improve transportation routing, as well as modernize its physical logistics infrastructure.

• FedEx will apply its expertise in large-scale orchestration to Army materiel management, optimizing stock levels and demand forecasting.

"The Army is holding itself to a new standard. A Soldier can order brake pads for his pickup and they're on his porch the next day. There is no reason the Army can't achieve that same level of speed and reliability for the warfighter. Logistics win wars. Through the Strategic Capital Initiative, we're pairing the Army's depots and demand with FedEx's logistics expertise and Google's secure cloud to build a supply chain that moves as fast as the fight demands.” Dan Driscoll, Secretary of the Army.

Army Seeks 8,000 New Short-Range Missiles Per Year

BLUF: The Army is looking for a weapon that is similar to the existing Hellfire and Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM).

• The missile should be capable of integrating with joint manned and unmanned air, ground and waterborne platforms using a M299 launcher or equivalent.

• Potential targets include heavy/light armor track vehicles, C2 nodes, air defense artillery radars, Counter-UAS, and small fast attack maritime targets.

• The missile should be capable of operating amid jamming and GPS denial.

• Contractors must provide technology and performance details on seeker sensors, warhead and propulsion solution.

• The Lockheed Martin M299 is designed to fire the company’s Hellfire and JAGM weapons. The launcher can be fitted to helicopters such as the Apache, Cobra and Seahawk, drones and even cargo containers.

New $51M Deal Unleashes Switchblade Loitering Munition for 70+ Mile Precision Strikes

BLUF: The Army ordered another $51M worth of AeroVironment’s Switchblade 600 loitering munition systems. The purchase includes the newer Switchblade 600 Block 2 and Block 1 variants. Some Block 1 systems will support a Foreign Military Sale to a U.S. ally.

• AeroVironment received the order through the Army’s five-year Lethal Unmanned Systems contract. The broader agreement carries a potential value of $990M. The purchase expands the Army’s growing inventory of long-range loitering weapons.

• More than 20 brigade combat teams have already received Switchblade 600s.

• Switchblade 600 Block 2 aims to operate where communications and navigation face disruption. Those conditions increasingly shape how the Army evaluates unmanned systems.

• AeroVironment upgraded the system’s avionics and navigation capabilities. The weapon also incorporates automatic target recognition through its SPOTR AiTR technology. That capability can help operators detect and identify potential targets faster. It could also reduce the workload involved in monitoring targets during missions.

Army Modernization Problem: Local Transformation Without Direction

Matt Russell and Michael Carvelli

BLUF: Strategic direction has not kept pace with Army modernization. Units and organizations face several valid strategic demands without a clear framework for deciding which demands should shape force design, doctrine, training, and investment. Army modernization faces a problem of direction rather than effort.

• The Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative drives transformation from the tactical to the strategic level.

• Soldiers and battalion-level formations are developing prototypes, brigades are testing new formations and capabilities, and divisions are validating combat systems.

• Portfolio acquisition executives are shortening acquisition timelines and moving capabilities toward fielding. Innovation initiatives connect tactical experimentation with Army-wide modernization. Army leaders have committed the organization to continuous transformation.

• Local success does not automatically produce Army-wide change.

• Experiments must move from individual formations into force structure, doctrine, training, acquisition, and funding. Scaling therefore requires institutional decisions about which innovations support the Army's strategic direction.

• Without those decisions, modernization can remain a collection of successful local efforts rather than a coherent force-wide program.

• Senior leaders still must decide which capabilities serve all theaters, which require regional specialization, and where the Army accepts risk. Strategic ambiguity pushes those choices downward.

• Clear strategic direction would

  • Give battalion experimentation a defined purpose.

  • Align brigade modernization.

  • Help divisions specialize where strategy requires specialization.

• Strategic Clarity can

  • Reduce duplication across modernization programs.

  • Increase modernization speed.

• Army transformation depends on innovation guided by clear direction.

Army Awards Industry Contracts for Nuclear Microreactors Program

BLUF: The Army selected five commercial partners to build and deploy nuclear microreactors at five initial locations through its Janus program.

• Nuclear energy is a natural game-changer for the Army, and in partnership with the DIU, the Army awarded five companies up to a combined $2.2B to own, construct and operate more than 20 nuclear microreactors on military installations by 2028.

  • Antares Nuclear Inc. will deliver its first microreactor to Fort Bragg, NC

  • BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC to Fort Campbell, KY

  • General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems to Fort Hood, TX

  • Radiant Industries Inc. to Fort Benning, GA

  • Westinghouse Government Services to Fort Drum, NY

• Each company will deliver a different number of microreactors based on their negotiated contract, and they have been allocated different amounts of government funds.

• The Army’s Janus next-generation nuclear power program aims to deliver secure, resilient and reliable energy to support national defense installations and critical missions.

“Military operations are reliant on constant energy, and as modern threats evolve rapidly, there is a growing demand for electricity. Unlike in prior conflicts, we now know that our domestic electric grid is potentially at risk in a conflict. Right now, all critical infrastructure that the Army has is backed up by some form of liquid fossil fuel, primarily diesel.” Jeff Waksman, PDASA for installations, energy and environment.

Related: The Army’s Project Janus Taps Five Nuclear Companies for On-Base Power

Other Army News:

• Fort Rucker hosts PAE-Maneuver Air Industry Days

• ThinKom Awarded OTA with U.S. Army to Deliver Alecto High-Power Microwave System for Maneuver C-UAS

• Hanwha Wins Army Mobile Tactical Cannon Contract

• How Detroit Defense Is Modernizing Army Logistics for the Fight Ahead

CNO Delivers State of the Navy Speech

• Sailors are exceptional but slowed by bureaucracy, delayed maintenance, and processes that steal time from training and readiness.

• “Sailors first” means greater lethality: move sailors off ships into barracks, invest in housing/food/fitness, and cut low-value paperwork so people, not processes, generate combat power.

• Real-world ops plus new Fighting Instructions and the Foundry–Fleet–Fight concept give clarity on how the Navy builds, generates, and employs power.

• UxS, Virginia Payload Module subs, Flight III destroyers, at-sea additive manufacturing, and Fleet Introduction Operating System FIOS are moving capability into the fleet ready to fight on day one, not as endless experiments.

• The goal is a self-adaptive fleet (payloads over platforms, mixed manned/ unmanned packages) that deters by posing unsolvable dilemmas and can fight from seabed to space anywhere without asking permission.

Navy Boss Launches Defense Industrial Base Office

BLUF: Acting SECNAV established a new Office of the Defense Industrial Base, led by Andrew Magliochetti as the first deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the DIB and principal civilian adviser to the Navy’s acquisition chief.

• Magliochetti is charged with driving the revitalization of the maritime industrial base, fostering supply chain resilience, and accelerating the transition of innovative technologies from the private sector to the Fleet.

• The office will expand the domestic manufacturing ecosystem, mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities, and integrate dual-use commercial technologies to enhance the lethality of the Navy-Marine Corps team.

• The move responds to persistent industrial-base problems:

  • Large backlogs of orders across six major Navy shipbuilding programs

  • Diminished supplier capacity

  • Rising costs,

  • Ships being delivered years late.

• The White House has directed the Department to restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base.

• Magliochetti brings more than 20 years of experience in finance, private equity, venture capital, small business and national security technology. His stated priority is accelerating the delivery of resilient supply chains and cutting-edge, dual-use technologies directly into the hands of our warfighters so Sailors and Marines are ready for a high-end fight.

Related: Hung Cao taps civilian to stand up Navy industrial base office, Magliochetti appointed US Navy deputy assistant secretary for DIB, and Acting SECNAV Appoints Andrew Magliochetti to Lead Defense Industrial Base Revitalization, Equip the Golden Fleet

Navy Tests Lockheed Missile System Aboard USV for Precision Strike

BLUF: Lockheed Martin and Saildrone demonstrated the ability to launch missiles from an USV during the RIMPAC 2026 exercise near Hawaii, showing how commercial autonomous platforms could be adapted for military missions.

• A Surveyor-class Saildrone was integrated with Lockheed Martin’s Joint-Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) Dual Launcher and an Adjunct Remote Engagement System (ARES) fire-control system.

• During the demonstration, the vessel responded to targeting data and engaged a surrogate high-speed surface craft while operating alongside the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

• The companies said the system went from concept to live demonstration in six months, highlighting their efforts to rapidly integrate existing defense technology onto commercial unmanned vessels.

• The exercise also included a separate electronic warfare demonstration. The Saildrone Surveyor used passive electronic warfare technology to detect, classify and identify a surrogate radar threat, working in coordination with an MH-60S helicopter.

Our Take: This is very promising. To have a traditional and non-traditional defense company partner to rapidly integrate their capabilities and demonstrate it in a premier exercise. The key is to then scale and iterate the integrated solution. We can’t have these companies get this done in six months only to wait 2-3 years for the Navy and Congress to fund the next phase.

Navy Awards Castelion $90M for Blackbeard Hypersonic Weapon EOC

BLUF: The Navy has awarded Castelion an $89.9M contract to advance the Blackbeard hypersonic strike weapon toward Early Operational Capability (EOC) by 2028.

• The award is building on Castelion’s prior work on Low Cost Highly Manufacturable Long Range Strike Weapon Production.

• The order funds engineering, technical, logistics, and manufacturing services supporting 50 EOC weapons and Blackbeard’s transition to a Navy Program of Record. It also funds Defense Exportability Features design modifications to accelerate export to our allies and partners.

• The award is a critical step in Blackbeard’s transition from development and flight testing toward operationally relevant production. Work will be performed in Torrance, CA, and is expected to be completed in August 2028.

Blackbeard Low-Cost Hypersonic Missile Testing On The F/A-18 Super Hornet Has Begun

BLUF: The air-launched version of Castelion’s Blackbeard hypersonic strike missile for the Navy has now at least been test-loaded onto an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

• The Navy is acquiring Blackbeard under its Multi-mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) program

• Whether or not any actual flight tests have been conducted is also unclear. Another slide in the Navy briefing at Tailhook included a bullet point reading “Project Alpha – Hypersonic missile shot in 2026,” but does not explicitly say whether or not that milestone has already been reached.

• The MACE slide makes clear that the program is directly intertwined with Project Alpha, if they are not just different names for the same effort.

• The picture of the Blackbeards on the Super Hornet’s wing offers a new look at the front of the missile, showing what look to be apertures on one side of the design’s wedge-shaped nose. The apparent apertures are also seen pointed up, but many air-launched munitions do flip down after release.

Blackbeard is Coming

Tiny Air-To-Air Missile In Development For Stealthy U.S. Navy Combat Aircraft

BLUF: The big AIM-424 long-range air-to-air missile has grabbed headlines, but the Navy is also pursuing a new weapon for the exact opposite use case.

• The Navy made a major splash this weekend when it revealed the existence of the AIM-424 Malice Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile (LRAAM), which is already deep in development.

• At the same time, the service also highlighted plans for a new Compact Air-to-Air Missile (CAAM) optimized for shorter-range engagements and internal carriage on stealthy fighters like the F-35 and future drones as part of its larger future missile vision.

• The core goals for CAAM sound virtually identical to what the service has outlined previously in relation to a “Compact Variant” of the AIM-9X Sidewinder (AIM-9X CV).

• The CAAM effort is a future inner boundary weapon. Requirements are being evaluated and assessed by N98.

Related: AIM-424 “Malice” Very Long-Range Air-To-Air Missile Emerges From The Shadows, Navy Unveils AIM-424 Malice Long-Range Air-to-Air Missile and Navy reveals new long range air-to-air missile, dubbed ‘Malice’

Navy’s New Anti-Submarine Torpedo Will be a Glide Weapon

BLUF: The Navy is exploring two options for its Silent Anvil Air-Launched Torpedo and is seeking contractors that fit the bill. The first is a new torpedo launched from an aircraft or drone that glides into the water and acoustically homes in on the target. The other is a glide kit affixed to an existing torpedo.

• The concept seems similar to the Navy’s existing High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability system, which added a glide kit to regular Mark 54 torpedoes that can be launched from P-8 Poseidon patrol planes flying as high as 30,000 feet.

• Or, the Air Force’s highly successful Joint Attack Direct Munition, which added fins and GPS to turn iron bombs into cheap guided munitions.

• Silent Anvil would extend the concept to a wider range of manned and unmanned aircraft platforms capable of executing ASW missions.

• The Navy seeks a weapon that can be carried internally or externally, and is compatible with a standard BRU-61/A bomb rack.

• The torpedo should have compact, lightweight form factor similar to the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) to maximize aircraft carriage options across multiple manned and unmanned platforms.

Related: Navy Wants New Standoff Aerial Torpedo for Carrier Aircraft and Navy seeks to prototype air-launched torpedo system for Silent Anvil program

Taiwan-Bound Harpoon Coastal Defense System Scores Direct Hit in Navy Test

BLUF: The land-based Harpoon Coastal Defense System (HCDS) scored a direct hit during Navy trials ahead of its planned deployment to Taiwan’s military. The HCDS is currently not under contract for the US or any other military besides Taiwan’s, making the successful live-fire test a critical step in fulfilling Taipei’s $2.3B order.

• The Boeing-made Harpoon Coastal Defense System successfully struck the test target during a developmental test.

• The test was designed to validate the ground-based Harpoon system’s ability to engage at-sea threats.

• The test represents a significant milestone in our mission to deliver a vital, high-priority defense capability to the field. Further trials will proceed in the second phase of the developmental phase to further validate the HCDS.

• Between 2022 to 2026, HF stocks were bolstered by the hundreds in the “Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan.” Further developments have expanded their ranges out to 1,500 kilometers.

“During the event, the Harpoon missile successfully launched from land and engaged the target vessel in near-shore/littoral waters. HCDS is designed to provide a robust, land-based anti-ship capability, leveraging the proven Harpoon missile to protect vital coastal assets and strategic waterways.” PAE Maritime Release

The Navy’s Looming Submarine Cruise Missile Gap

Bruce Allen Lubbering

BLUF: A subtle but monumental shift is occurring beneath the waves, reshaping the future of American maritime strike capability. As the Navy quietly prepares to inactivate the Ohio-class guided-missile submarines, the era of the undisputed undersea leviathans is ending.

• On August 3, 2026, the Department of the Navy formally reclassified 19 planned Virginia-class submarines equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) as guided-missile submarines (SSGNs).

• This move, announced just weeks after USS Georgia (the first of the Ohio-class SSGNs) began inactivation, marks the transition in real time.

• The underlying math has generated alarm, pointing to a sudden deficit of 400 to 600 vertical launch cruise missiles as the Ohio-class retires.

• If the Navy is losing four submarines capable of carrying 154 missiles each (616 total) and replacing them with 19 submarines capable of carrying 40 missiles each (760 total), the fleet-wide capacity actually increases in theory.

• The Navy has explicitly pivoted away from concentrating overwhelming firepower in a small handful of centralized platforms. This strategic shift is formalized under the doctrine of Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO).

• This transition from concentrated mass to distributed lethality yields unparalleled operational flexibility, allowing combatant commanders to tailor their undersea presence dynamically without committing a massive strategic asset to a localized conflict.

First LCU 1700-class Vessel Joins the U.S. Navy Fleet

BLUF: Austal USA delivered LCU 1710 to the Navy, the first vessel completed under the Navy’s LCU 1700-class program and the first steel-hulled ship the shipbuilder has ever delivered to the service.

• Austal USA, based in Mobile, has built its Navy business primarily on aluminum vessels, including Independence-variant littoral combat ships and Expeditionary Fast Transport ships.

• LCU 1710 marks the company’s shift into steel-hull construction for the Navy, a different set of fabrication and welding processes than its aluminum work.

• LCU 1710 is built to move equipment and personnel from ship to shore in support of expeditionary operations.

• Austal USA and the Navy have described the LCU 1700 class as offering greater capability, endurance, and survivability than the legacy LCU 1610-class vessels it is replacing. Those legacy landing craft have been in Navy service since the 1970s.

Liberator: Understanding the Navy’s New Seabed Carrier Killer

BLUF: In 2025, the Navy quietly unveiled its Liberator program as an effort focused on developing, testing, and fielding a containerized heavyweight torpedo for expeditionary and contested environments.

• The Navy curtly described its Liberator effort as a tool to develop an alternative delivery system for torpedoes or similar devices.

• This year, new details regarding Liberator’s purpose and capabilities have emerged, still well-hidden, going far beyond what was previously known or speculated about the system’s intended use or deployment platform.

• Liberator is an “innovative approach” to torpedo and mine warfare that will deploy as a “stationary system placed on the seabed to launch various payloads”.

• Development has been underway for several years and FY2026 funding was allocated to move the system along in its prototyping phase for design and fabrication of a full-scale test asset.

• The system is intended to serve as an extension of the U.S. Navy’s Orca Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) submarine as a stealthy, covert insertion tool for further employment of the service’s Mark 48 Advanced Capability (ADCAP) heavyweight torpedo.

Navy Exercises SPY-6 Radar Aboard its First Next-Gen Destroyer

BLUF: Raytheon reports that its advanced SPY-6 radar has been successfully tested during the recent “Pacific Dragon” missile-defense exercise near Hawaii.

• The exercise featured assets from various allied nations, including the United States, Australia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Chile, and Spain.

• Raytheon’s system was tested onboard the Navy destroyer USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125). The exercise included a series of information-sharing and target-tracking events designed to test and improve the participating nations’ air and missile-defense capabilities.

• Designed to improve a ship’s situational awareness, SPY-6 can feed its tracking data into the wider Aegis combat system, allowing that information to be shared with other fleet and allied assets through tactical data links.

• A powerful upgrade over existing radars, the system is able to monitor surrounding air and sea, track objects, and send targeting-quality data to the ship’s weapons.

15,000 operational days lost due to US submarine maintenance delays

BLUF: Maintenance delays for Navy attack subs have resulted in boats that are frequently idle in port when they should be at sea. Over the last decade, these delays resulted in an estimated $3.4B in costs to sustain crews and submarines that provided no operational capability.

• Perhaps even worse for a Navy already overstretched and exhausted, maintenance backlogs for attack subs between 2016-25 resulted in 15,000 lost operational days.

• This includes active idle time, when submarines and their crews must remain pier-side because they are no longer certified to conduct normal operations and cannot be inducted into a maintenance period.

• In other words, the Navy is stuck paying for a fully-crewed submarine that cannot be deployed.

• Given current trends, the Navy will be stuck with 15 subs and 14,000 days of inactive idle time between 2026 and 2030, at an estimated cost of $3.1B.

Related: Submarine maintenance delays, ‘idle time’ cost $3.4B and Navy’s powerful submarines facing ‘idle time’, maintenance delays

Other Navy News:

• Navy accepts delivery of final Expeditionary Sea Base vessel

• Navy Touts EMALS Reliability As It Starts White House Steam Study

• Navy scientists use microscopic precision to keep Trident II D5 missiles ready and sustain America’s nuclear deterrent

MCWL Accepts first Ancillary Surface Craft Prototype

BLUF: The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory has officially marked a critical milestone in Force Design modernization efforts with the technical acceptance of the first Ancillary Surface Craft (ASC) prototype.

• Designed to navigate challenging maritime geography and bridge logistical gaps, the ASC represents a major leap forward in the Corps’ ability to sustain Stand-in Forces within contested littoral environments, particularly in the Pacific.

• By using a partnership intermediary agreement strategy, the ASC program moved rapidly from concept to construction, placing work with a non-traditional shipbuilder to shorten the path to a fielded prototype.

• Contracted to Birdon America in 2024, the first prototype’s delivery initiates a new phase of rigorous testing and tactical experimentation led by the MCWL.

• The technical acceptance of the ASC underscores the Marine Corps' commitment to solving the complex challenges of contested logistics during Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).

• The roughly 150-foot roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) craft was purpose-built to deliver personnel, equipment, and fuel over the ''last tactical mile,'' beaching directly on unimproved shores.

Marine Corps Bets on Techy, but Human-Centric Ground Warfare for Next 15 Years

BLUF: The Marine Corps’ vision for the next decade-and-a-half of conflict, its ground forces will have drone-busting air defenses at the squad level, specialized precision strike troops equipped with whizbang loitering munitions, autonomous robots, and tools to assess units’ own electromagnetic emissions, lest an adversary spot them first.

• Underpinning this vision in a strategic blueprint called Ground Combat Element 2040, is a bet the Marines are making about how its most central formations will fight over the next 15 years: technology will help, but humans remain at the heart of ground warfare.

• The Marines will not perfectly predict what the next fight will look like or design the right force to meet it from the start. So, it is attempting to cultivate a ground element that can adapt to those uncertainties, while still being able to fight if those technological advantages collapse under enemy force or in the face of the inherent frictions of warfare.

• The long-range assessment includes the intersection of human decision-making and autonomous processes in its design principles. New technology, though empowering, never replaces human judgment.

“There will come a time in a conflict where the robotics and the fast decision making and all of that capability will fail, it will be denied by some adversary action. And so then it will be, what are the humans capable of?” Lt Gen Jay Bargeron, Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies, and Operations

USMC Ground Combat Element 2040

Air Force Refining Loyal Wingmen Specs

BLUF: Production is underway on Increment 1 of the Air Force’s CCA program, and the service is in the midst of developing what the next iteration of its uncrewed fighters will look like.

• The Air Force is currently conducting a CCA Increment 2 concept refinement phase with nine unnamed vendors and the process is scheduled to last until about mid-2027.

• The goal is to select up to six conceptual designs to move forward.

• The service is committed to continually survey the marketplace and understand who is able to bring capability to bear.

• As Increment 2 development continues, it will not be limited to the vendors participating in the concept refinement phase.

• The service is undertaking two concurrent development efforts for Increment 2 propulsion systems.

  • The first is a small engine capable of 1,400 to 1,600 pounds of thrust, which is currently going through preliminary designs.

  • The second is a medium-class engine capable of 5,000 to 6,000 pounds of thrust. That effort will either involve a clean-sheet design or a modified commercial off-the-shelf system.

Our Take: This is all very confusing. The propulsion folks are spending funds to develop two engine classes but the CCA Inc 2 program will not be constrained by those concepts? It really calls into question why funds are being spent on these engines if there is no alignment to CCA Inc 2 requirements. The other disconnect is that the propulsion folks seem to think that Inc 2 will require greater performance while many in the CCA community expect CCA Inc 2 to be a cheaper version with lower performance. Hopefully, we’ll get some clarity soon - although maybe not until the middle of next year.

Boeing Nabs Whopping $131B F-15 Deal

BLUF: The Air Force awarded Boeing $131.2B for the “F-15 Eagle Crest” effort that covers aircraft production, upgrades and sustainment, among other features, for the Pentagon and the jet’s international customers.

• The Air Force plans to surge its buy of the F-15 which will come with its own challenges. as it “introduces new cost and schedule uncertainties” with Boeing dealing with labor strikes and big delays in the F-15EX FOC.

• A government report also says that F-15s will require “major technical refresh” to overcome diminishing manufacturing sources which requires replacing or redesigning obsolete systems like the radar, engines and electronic warfare suite.

“As an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, it provides flexibility to support future efforts up to the contract ceiling, while each award remains subject to independent decision-making. The ceiling represents capacity for future needs, not a commitment to spend the full amount. By consolidating these efforts under a single contract vehicle, Eagle Crest will help the Air Force move faster and reduce administrative burden.”

Our Take: This contract likely makes sense given the amount of foreign orders for the F-15 and the need to keep these aircraft (as well as new EXs) that have life left operationally relevant. At the same time, doubling down on a legacy aircraft instead of looking to the future really pains us and it will result in leaving most of the industrial base out of this market for the foreseeable future - as all hopes will lay in the CCA program. There also seems little appetite from the Air Force to look to other vendors who could also contribute upgrades - which seems very short sighted. One can only hope Boeing will deliver because the Air Force is now VERY reliant on their success with many programs (F-35 aside).

F-35 Lifetime Price Tag Dips Beneath $2T Even as Buying Costs Rise

BLUF: The Pentagon anticipates it will cost about $536.3B to acquire all planned copies of the F-35 up from $485.2B in 2024. But the cost of operating it over its lifespan dropped from $2.06T to $1.93T.

• The operating cost figure projects costs like the price of fuel and staffing, as well as more complex technical estimates, such as sustainment and future upgrades.

• Affordability Initiatives have apparently helped lower anticipated spending and changes to the cost of materials and projected manpower.

• Increases in procurement come from higher development costs, boosting of spare parts and buying a new advanced radar.

Air Force Awards $100M Production Deal for AI-Enabled Readiness Platform

BLUF: The Air Force announced that VivSoft Technologies will develop and field a new platform intended to consolidate the service’s fragmented aircrew scheduling, training and readiness-management capabilities.

• The company received a $100M OT production agreement for the Aerospace Readiness Enterprise System (ARES) program.

• This will consolidate multiple Air Force scheduling software tools into a single enterprise environment enabled by artificial intelligence.

• The service plans to begin rolling out ARES across major commands in 2027.

• ARES grew out of a broader Air Force push to replace its patchwork of legacy scheduling, training and readiness platforms — many of which require manual data entry and provide limited visibility across different MAJCOMs.

Our Take: We don’t know much about this company but good to see the Air Force trying new approaches to solving these problems.

Air Force Seeks More Portable C2, Comms Approach After Studying Epic Fury

BLUF: The Air Force is modernizing how it conducts command and control (C2) and edge communications, moving away from a decade-old model that proved cumbersome and ineffective.

• A PACE plan is a mechanism to prepare multiple means of communications in case one is denied or there are technical issues preventing it from working properly, referred to as a Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency plan.

• The Air Force realized they only had a primary means of communications with no redundancies.

• Considerations like PACE will be a higher priority in a fight against Chinese forces, whose doctrine insinuates US communication lines are first on their target list.

• One of the big focus areas during Epic Fury was to provide edge connectivity for troops at frontline airfields and other forward positions who might be using a ruggedized laptop or radio, but it took too long to get comms kits into theater.

• Other efforts being looked at include using software-defined networking capabilities to collapse their four or five independent networks into one that is classification- and transport-agnostic, making the user experience seamless.

“We were operating under a model where we deploy big comm packages that took 10 pallets, about 20 tons, about 40 people to deploy. We can’t do that anymore. We have to be more agile and mobile and we need a case that is carriable by one person and can be run by one or two people.” Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Phillips, Air Force deputy chief of staff for warfighter communications and cyber systems

Air Force Awards Raytheon, Boeing $766M in Contracts for B-52 Radar Upgrades

BLUF: The Pentagon announced contracts to Raytheon and Boeing, totaling more than $766M, for advance work on adding new radars to the B-52H Stratofortress.

• The bigger of the two deals went to Raytheon Technologies as an IDIQ contract worth up to $603M to equip B-52s with new AN/APQ-188 radars.

• Boeing’s contract is for $163 million to build and deliver bomb rack modernization system kits to support the B-52’s Radar Modernization Program.

• The Radar Modernization Program is meant to replace the legacy mechanical AN/APQ-166 radar with a modern active electronically scanned array radar and is a critical part of a large-scale upgrade of the Cold War-era B-52.

Our Take: So much funding is being spent on modernizing the B-52 that the Air Force is essentially building a new aircraft one modification at a time.

Related Articles: Air Force awards $766M for B-52 radar modernization

Air Force Plans Contract That Could Keep RQ-4s Flying Into 2030s

BLUF: The Air Force is planning to award Northrop Grumman a contract (no declared value) that could allow the RQ-4 Global Hawk to keep flying into 2033.

• The Air Force plans to award Northrop a sole-source contract for development, modernization, retrofit, and sustainment of the surveillance drone.

• Those support activities include program management, hardware and software upgrades and sustainment, engineering and onsite support, logistics, training development and administration, and other test and integration activities.

• The RQ-4 is a strategic long-endurance, high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unmanned aircraft. It can capture imagery or signals intelligence or conduct ground moving target indication.

• The FY26 NDAA Congress barred the Air Force from retiring any of its remaining nine RQ-4s until the end of fiscal 2030.

Machina Achieves First Flight of a RoboFormed Component on Repaired C-17

BLUF: Machina, a leader in advanced manufacturing and robotics, announced that a critical structural repair fabricated by its RoboCraftsman platform has flown for the first time, returning a damaged C-17 to operational capability.

• The repair was completed in partnership with the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO), University of Dayton Research Institute and Boeing.

• Machina’s RoboCraftsman platform fabricated a first-of-its-kind replacement part for the damaged C-17 without the need for dedicated tooling.

“The RoboCraftsman capability significantly decreased our timeline, reducing the repair process from years to only a few months.” Mary Schuler, RSO Automation and Robotics lead program manager.

Emerging Space Technologies Still Not Making it to Orbit

BLUF: According to experts, despite Pentagon initiatives aimed at fielding innovative technology quicker, new space technologies are languishing.

• Some of the challenges acknowledged by the Space Force include:

  • Industrial friction and cultural transition, as encouraging smaller partners to enter the picture breaks the mold of focusing on the prime contractors.

  • Additionally, buyouts and downsizing have resulted in bottlenecks in the industrial base, which cannot be eliminated overnight.

• One proposed approach from industry is to establish “programs of merit” that are budgeted separately and focused on scaling a SBIR or similar effort like a PoR.

“Portfolio acquisition executives, which are the replacement for traditional program executive officers, are not incentivized to prioritize innovation. Instead, those officials are focused on their programs of record, as that is where their efforts are measured — not on a capability that has no requirement.” Clive Cook, CEO of Precursor SPC

“Companies cannot build a sustainable business based solely on demonstration and pilot programs. Eventually, there has to be a customer buying an operational capability or a service at scale. We don’t know who owns the capability after demonstration, who incorporates it into their architecture, who budgets for it and who becomes the recurring customer.” Tahara Dawkins, senior director of policy at Astroscale U.S.

Space Force Plans Scorecard to Evaluate Programs Commercial Integration and More

BLUF: The Space Force is exploring ways to incentivize acquisition leaders to leverage more commercial innovation across their programs, including a new “scorecard” to quantify their efforts.

• The Space Force is still determining what those metrics will be, but commercial integration will likely be one of them.

• The Space Force has for years talked about adopting commercial technology, with acquisition leaders calling for PMs to consider what capabilities are available in the private sector before opting to build a new satellite, sensor, or ground system.

• Space Force leaders say this “commercial first” mindset has been normalized across its acquisition community, but some companies are still looking for evidence the service is serious about adopting private sector innovation.

• Industry sees holding PAEs accountable to actually integrate commercial technology into their larger programs is a step toward addressing that challenge.

“Where we are today is at kind of a fundamental turning point, paradigm shift in how we’re going to do acquisition across all levels, including commercial integration. The idea here is, commercial first and speeding up capability to the warfighter.”

Space Force Spent $124M on Commercial Data, Services over 3 Years

BLUF: The Space Force spent nearly $124M on commercial space data and services between 2023 and 2025—and a little known interagency working group could help facilitate even more data buys going forward.

• This includes things like imagery and electro-optical observations as well as analytic reports and services that allow the agencies to identify potential positioning, navigation, and timing interference.

• The Space Force uses a contractor-run platform called the Global Data Marketplace to buy much of its commercial data.

• GAO found that the Joint Commercial Operations cell— a U.S. Space Command-managed organization—was the largest purchaser from Jan 2023 to Sep 2025 it tracked, accounting for about 62% of its spending, or $76M.

• System Delta 810, which delivers space-based sensing and targeting capabilities, bought about $35M through the marketplace during that time frame.

• There is a little-known organization called the Cross-Government Commercial Data Sharing Working Group, composed of various DOD offices and other federal agencies, meets regularly to discuss options for data sharing, address issues and concerns from user groups, and even to coordinate data buys.

• The challenge however is that few seemed to know of the office’s existence.

Our Take: It’s great to see SPACECOM take more advantage of commercial services but there is great potential for scaling that further - hopefully this group can improve its marketing and be a function to improve commercial procurement.

Space Force Acquisition Office Arrives from L.A., Bringing Focus on Testing and Training

BLUF: Col. Richard Beckman arrived in COS in early August and will oversee an office of 300 people responsible for purchasing new training and test systems, personnel management infrastructure, and data management capability as part of his new PAR for Infrastructure responsibilities.

Related Article: Space Force PAE For Infrastructure Completing Move To Colorado Springs

Rocket Lab Launches 9th Satellite for iQPS

BLUF: Rocket Lab launched another satellite for Japanese radar-imaging company iQPS on Aug. 20.

• This was the ninth Electron launch for iQPS overall and the second consecutive mission for the company.

• iQPS is deploying a constellation of synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, satellites, with a goal of having 24 satellites in orbit by May 2028 and 26 satellites by 2030.

• It has primarily used Electron to launch those satellites, with nine additional Electron launches under contract.

Rocket Lab to Test Space Force Data Network Connection in Orbit in 2027

BLUF: Rocket Lab plans to use one of its Photon spacecraft for an in-orbit demonstration of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Data Network in 2027.

• This includes a Photon spacecraft equipped with optical communications and networking hardware to demonstrate interoperability in orbit.

• It will test connections between the SpaceX-built network backbone and satellites from other suppliers.

• SSC named Rocket Lab as one of five companies selected for a $60M effort to demonstrate how different commercial satellite systems can connect to the Space Data Network, or SDN.

• Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York Space Systems also received $12 million apiece.

• The SDN is a planned military communications architecture designed to move large volumes of data among satellites and between space and the ground.

• The Space Force is trying to establish common interfaces that allow spacecraft and networks from other suppliers to connect to that backbone, avoiding an architecture dependent on proprietary technology from a single company.

Space Force Adopts Digital Engineering Tool for NC3 Satellite Program

BLUF: A new collaborative digital environment could change the way the Space Force—and possibly the broader Defense Department—designs and tests capabilities.

• Space Systems Command has been working with General Dynamics Information Technology since 2023 to develop the platform, called Project Enigma.

• Because many aspects of the program are classified, SSC needed a secure environment where its prime contractor Boeing and other industry partners could share and validate designs.

• While major systems like the B-21 Raider have used digital modeling to speed up development, adoption has been slow and many program teams are siloed, with contractors using different tools that aren’t compatible adding time and money.

“With unified access to critical platforms, stakeholders can co-develop solutions, share insights, and innovate while maintaining strict security controls and compliance at the highest classification level. Enigma ensures ESS capabilities are developed faster, smarter, and with high integrity, while maintaining industry-leading security.” SSC Announcement

Space Force Expands Starshield Service for Military Aircraft

BLUF: The Pentagon is expanding its use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite network aboard military aircraft, awarding the company a new fleet-level service contract that sheds light on how the system is being integrated across U.S. aviation fleets.

• An award notice was posted on Aug. 25 for “Starshield Custom Fleet Aviation Services,” covering satellite subscription services for aircraft equipped with SpaceX’s Starshield Tile and smaller Tile Mini terminals.

• The new task order calls for worldwide Starshield service with data rates of at least 500 megabits per second downlink and 100 megabits per second uplink.

• Documents show that U.S. government organizations have already funded development and qualification of ruggedized Starshield terminals for a range of military aircraft, including cargo planes and tactical fighter jets.

• Eleven government organizations participated in development of the Tile Mini during 2024 and 2025.

• The award was made under the Space Force’s Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services contract.

• Government market research found OneWeb-compatible aviation terminals were the only potential alternative but said none had been tested to MIL-STD-810H and MIL-STD-461G standards required for military aviation.

SDA Fills Out Tranche 1 While Bracing for Challenges Ahead

BLUF: Northrop Grumman satellites are preparing for launch into the Pentagon’s first operational military data network in LEO.

• After a months-long pause, SDA is filling out the Tranche 1 Transport Layer, the communications backbone of the PWSA.

• Two planes of York Space Systems satellites and one plane of Lockheed Martin spacecraft are in Tranche 1.

• In spite of the progress, SDA faces challenges as it turns from demonstrating key technologies to populating and operating constellations. Rapidly expanding manufacturing has been difficult due to supply chain constraints.

• Recent Space Force restructuring is also changing Sandhoo’s responsibilities. He is overseeing PWSA Tranches 1 and 2 and directing future tranches of missile-warning satellites with sensors in LEO, MEO, HEO and GEO.

• The PWSA Transport layer will be managed by another PAE (SBST).

“It’s one thing to build three or four satellites and get into an assembly, integration and test campaign. To do that for a whole constellation is challenging. Companies are learning and adapting.”

Related Article: SDA Director Says Constellation’s Tranche 1 Checkouts Progressing Faster After a Slow Start

Anduril Launches 1st Satellite with Apex

BLUF: The Anduril space team used Lattice to commission and task ANDURIL-216, the first time Lattice has commanded an on-orbit spacecraft.

We bet our own money to rapidly design, build, test, and fly a fully integrated satellite. Last month, ANDURIL-216 reached orbit. Anduril, alongside a few core partners, went from clean sheet to on orbit in less than two years.

Initial Golden Dome tests focused on C2, software

BLUF: The first large-scale tests for the Golden Dome missile defense shield focused on validating the architecture’s complex command-and-control and software systems.

• Members of the military and industry observed the tests, which were designed to demonstrate and challenge the C2 capabilities required for the architecture.

• A key focus was understanding how the Pentagon can integrate current systems with new technologies, as well as pushing boundaries of the department’s vision.

• Guetlein has previously described command-and-control architecture as the initiative’s “secret sauce.” The Golden Dome office has already established an industry consortium of nine vendors to guide the network’s development.

“They were designed to validate software, they were designed to validate sensor-to-shooter linkages that perhaps are different than what today exists. They were designed to add stress on the locations and the ranges where we did them to be the biggest that we’ve ever done.”

Why the Golden Dome Is Essential for Homeland Defense

Glen VanHerck

BLUF: The argument that Golden Dome will compromise nuclear deterrence and thereby erode strategic stability does not fully appreciate the extraordinary new threats to the homeland that have been created.

• This is not just by drones but also ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile systems capable of hitting critical infrastructure and targets in the United States.

• Strategic stability is eroding. The risk of deterrence failure is growing daily.

• Today, the United States faces what has become a strategic missile gap.

• An array of modern, offensive conventional systems, both kinetic and non-kinetic, are now more than capable—without using nuclear weapons—of disrupting our national command response system and gravely damaging critical infrastructure.

• To deter such attacks on the homeland, the United States must field Golden Dome for America—a layered, integrated air and missile defense architecture designed to counter these new conventional threats.

• Deterrence works when an adversary concludes that an attack will fail to achieve its objectives or that the cost will far outweigh any gain.

• Golden Dome defensive systems, along with a comprehensive homeland defense campaign plan, will address that decisively.

• It will create a multi-layered shield—sensors and effectors, both kinetic and non-kinetic, operating from the ground, sea, air, and space.

Other International News:

• CesiumAstro Expands into Missile Tracking with 1Aardvark Acquisition

China Develops Missile to Target Planes Thousands of Miles Away

BLUF: The Chinese military has developed hypersonic glide vehicles that can launch air-to-air weapons, an advancement meant to threaten high-value targets such as command-and-control aircraft thousands of miles away.

• The breakthrough is part of a larger effort by China to use its missile arsenal — the world’s largest at more than 3,150 ballistic weapons — for nearly every military task.

• Meanwhile, the US is struggling with supplies of crucial air defense missiles and long-range strike weapons after six months of war with Iran.

• China also added air-to-air capabilities to some hypersonic cruise missiles and built anti-ship capabilities into several types of missiles.

• Such weapons would pose a serious threat to air operations during a conflict.

• Support aircraft such as tankers, airborne warning-and-control planes and flying command posts are meant to operate far from combat.

• A hypersonic glide vehicle deployed from a DF-17 missile could travel about 1,500 miles — just short of the distance from China to Guam, a major military site.

• The DF-27 missile has a range of about 5,000 miles, putting Hawaii in range.

• To be sure, using what is essentially a ballistic missile to attack a distant aircraft is costly, difficult and risky.

  • The travel time of a ballistic missile — 20 minutes or more at maximum range — means that targeting information must be extremely precise.

  • That long “kill chain” of getting distant sensor information to the missile makes operations easier to disrupt.

Related Article: China Turns Hypersonic Glide Vehicles into Long-Range Air-to-Air Hunters of US Planes

How the Iranian Shahed Drone Transformed War—With China’s Help

BLUF: China has long served as arguably the most important clearinghouse for Shahed components, including engine parts, servomotors and gyroscopes.

• It is part of a complex global supply chain that enabled an isolated country like Iran to pioneer and share one of the most transformative military innovations of the era: cheap, flying, killing machines that have bedeviled the U.S. and its allies.

• he Shahed—a simple and destructive flying wedge of fiberglass, microchips and explosives costing as little as $20,000—helps show how weapons proliferation has changed, and why tapping global supply chains is now so important.

• To develop Shaheds, Iran employed a design pioneered by the U.S. and West Germany. To actually make them, however, Tehran had to source parts from across the globe, including Western nations as well as China.

Russia Is Expanding Its Long-Range Strike Drone Network

BLUF: Commercial satellite imagery shows Russia has been expanding the dedicated launch infrastructure for its long-range one-way attack drones, including newly constructed extended rails intended to accommodate larger, newer Geran variants.

• The construction provides concrete evidence that Moscow is increasing its ability to stage and launch larger numbers of long-range strike drones from dispersed locations near Ukraine and Belarus.

• The launch sites also bring more NATO territory within the drones’ reach.

• The investigation counted at least 59 launch rails, roughly 20 of which were assessed to be long enough to support newer Geran-type drones.

Related Article: Russia builds secret drone bases in striking distance of Nato

Taiwan Proposes Boosting 2027 Defence Spending 18% to a Record High

BLUF: Taiwan’s government on Thursday proposed ‌an 18% rise in defence spending for next year, including for drones and missiles, taking it above T$1 trillion ($31.41 billion) for the first time as Taipei bolsters its military to ward off China.

• The budget details come as Beijing, which views democratically governed Taiwan ​as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past few ​years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.

• Spending plan includes drones and missiles previously denied parliamentary approval.

Destinus and the Netherlands Ministry of Defence Launch Hornet B2 Naval Counter-UAS Development Program

BLUF: Low-cost aerial threats can arrive in volume, and meeting each one with a premium interceptor is an equation no navy can sustain. The Netherlands Ministry of Defence and Destinus are now working to develop that layer with Hornet B2.

• High-end naval air-defence missiles remain essential, but fleets also need an additional interceptor layer that can be deployed in greater numbers and matched more closely to the cost and scale of the threat.

• The Ministry of Defence’s Materiel and IT Command, COMMIT, has signed a contract with Destinus to launch a Concept Development & Evaluation program for a kinetic counter-UAS capability for the Royal Netherlands Navy.

• Hornet B2 is built around a different architecture from a traditional interceptor missile.

• The system is stored in a sealed canister and launched by a rocket booster. After launch, it deploys folding wings and transitions to electric-powered cruise flight.

• This combines missile-class launch readiness with aircraft-class range and endurance, while targeting a cost per engagement far below that of traditional interceptor missiles.

Successful Trial of Laser Marks Deepening of Australia-Japan Defence Collaboration

BLUF: The collaboration between Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), Mitsubishi Electric Australia (MEA) and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) has seen the successful field testing of a world-first prototype laser system.

• This $70 million investment will become the home of a new MEA Defence Division, supporting future manufacturing opportunities in Australia and strengthening access to advanced Mitsubishi Electric defence technologies for the Australian Defence Force into the future.

• Boobook is more than a technology project. It is a practical example of the growing defence industrial partnership between Australia and Japan, as well as the opportunities that partnership creates for both nations.

U.S., U.K. Firms Partner to Airdrop Uncrewed Boat

BLUF: U.S. company Capewell combined its parachute-based Universal Maritime Craft Aerial Delivery System with U.K.-based Kraken Technology Group’s optional airdrop kit to launch the K3 SCOUT uncrewed surface vessel from an A400M military transport aircraft into water from an altitude of 1,300 feet.

• Capewell modified a Type V heavy-duty airdrop platform and strapped it to the bottom of the robotic boat to ensure a safe and reliable landing.

• Once the airdrop was initiated, a parachute pulled the whole bundle out of the aircraft, and a pair of timers initiated a separation sequence between the airdrop system — which deployed its own parachute — and the K3 SCOUT.

• Both companies tweaked the design over the course of four airdrops, ultimately succeeding with the final drop.

• The tests demonstrated that a K3 SCOUT could be inserted directly by air and enter the water ready for operation, significantly expanding the speed, range and flexibility with which uncrewed maritime capabilities can be deployed.

Indonesia’s First Aircraft Carrier Is on Its Way from Italy

BLUF: Indonesia is about to become the second Southeast Asian country to operate an aircraft carrier, after Thailand became the first with HTMS Chakri Naruebet.

• The latest addition to the region’s small carrier club is the former Italian Navy carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, which departed Italy earlier this week, bound for Indonesia, where it will eventually become KRI Gajah Mada.

• Commissioned in 1985, Garibaldi was initially described as a “helicopter cruiser” before being redesignated as an aircraft-carrying cruiser in 1989 and receiving the Italian Navy’s AV-8B Harrier II jump jets.

• The ship subsequently served as Italy’s flagship and later shifted toward amphibious operations and command-and-control duties after the larger Cavour entered service.

• At around 13,850 tons full loa, Garibaldi combined compact aviation capability with a multirole weapon and sensor fit, at least in its early period of service.

• Its armament historically included two octuple launchers for Sea Sparrow/Aspide surface-to-air missiles, four Otomat Mk 2 anti-ship missiles, two 2 triple torpedo tubes, and three twin Oto Melara 40mm guns.

• Indonesia is acquiring the ship through an intergovernmental grant arrangement rather than purchasing it through a conventional commercial transaction.

Bulgaria Advances Project to Launch New Space, Defense Innovation Hub

BLUF: Bulgaria’s government has approved a draft memorandum of understanding with the local satellite manufacturer EnduroSat to collaborate on the development of a new space and defense innovation hub near the country’s capital Sofia.

• The development comes as the country’s other space companies such as Sfera Technologies are expanding their capabilities, and the Bulgarian government is taking new steps to establish itself as a preeminent European space hub separate from the European Space Agency.

• Bulgaria represents a rare European example of a country with a near-full stack of space technology, comprising modern ground segment services for low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and geostationary orbit, satellite manufacturing and AIT, sovereign geostationary communications capability and a rich heritage in space and planetary science that dates back to the 1970s.

The Fight Over the FY27 Defense Budget is On.

BLUF: When Congress returns to Capitol Hill in September, lawmakers will face a massive to-do list on defense issues, including a stopgap bill to keep the government open through the midterm election, a supplemental funding plan to cover the Iran war, and the fiscal 2027 defense budget.

• The Pentagon is betting big on a $1.15 trillion discretionary budget request with a further $350 billion coming from the reconciliation process.

• whether the Republican-led Congress can find the political will to pass the full $1.5 trillion sum is very much up in the air.

• The House has yet to pass its version of the FY27 defense appropriations bill, having moved the bill through committee in June.

• The Senate is even further behind, with Republican and Democrat leaders of the SAC still at a stalemate on how to balance defense and nondefense spending.

• The House has passed its so-called “Reconciliation 3.0” bill with $60B for defense, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has yet to find the votes to push the bill forward in the Senate.

• Congress won’t have much time to pass a funding stopgap. The House will be back in session next week before adjourning for a weeklong break for Labor Day, and the Senate won’t return to Capitol Hill until Sept. 14.

See our NDAA and budget posts for the latest insights and analysis.

How Quickly Can the DOD Rebuild and Recast the Munitions Industrial Base?
All About the Base

ADM Caudle delivers keynote address at Tailhook 2026
Tailhook Association Naval Aviation Symposium

Why China Will Avoid Giving the U.S. a Pearl Harbor Moment | Dean Cheng
Defense Disrupted

Inside SEAL Team 6’s Spy Unit: Black Squadron | Clint Emerson
Shawn Ryan Show

How Humanoid Robots Will Change Warfare | Mike LeBlanc
Drone Wars

Turning Emerging Tech into Capability | Jen Walsh, Rachel Sutherland
NDIA Emerging Tech Horizons

GOVCON Accelerator Summit
DLF • Sep 1-2 • Reston, VA

Emerging Technologies for Defense
NDIA ETI • Sep 9-10 • Washington DC

Creative Disruptors by the Lakes
CDF • Sept 18-19 • Minnesota

Air • Space • and Cyber Conference
AFA • Sep 14-16 • National Harbor, MD

Unmanned Maritime Systems Tech
SAE Media • Sep 14-16 • Arlington, VA

Undersea Warfare Conference
NDIA • Sep 21-23 • Groton, CT

UAV Technology
SAE Media • Sep 22 • London UK

Resilience Conference
Oct 5-6 • London

Land Forces
Oct 6-8 • Perth • Western Australia

DEFCON
Stanford • Oct 7 • Silicon Valley, CA

Apex Europe
Oct 7-8 • London

AUSA Army Annual Meeting and Expo
Oct 12-14 • Washington DC

Mission Engineering and Integration Activity TEM
USW(R&E) • Oct 15 • TBD

The biggest stories across the Department and the defense industry this week:

• Deputy Feinberg requires cost/pricing data for all tiers of supply chain

• New hypersonic weapons, seaglider, and 3D printing solutions emerge.

• Army evolves C2, EW, and HPM capabilities

• Navy drops $22B on Tomahawks, Orca completes 1,000 mile trek

• Air Force advances ACE construct with C2 demo and real-world exercise

• Space Force may see supply chain bottlenecks constrain ambitions

• Europe still open for U.S. despite push for domestic industrial buildup

Deputy Secretary Supplier Cost and Pricing Transparency Memo

BLUF: Deputy Secretary Feinberg signed a memo that the DOW must have maximum insight into cost and pricing data from industry to negotiate the best price for weapon systems and other contracts.

• This directive to the warfighting acquisition workforce resets the Department’s expectations regarding supplier cost and pricing information.

• Full transparency throughout all tiers of the supply chain applies to all contractors and subcontractors.

• This requirement supports negotiations for products and services valued at $10M or more, regardless of whether cost and pricing data requires certification.

• Directed USW(A&S) to establish fair and reasonable contract profit margins by applying commercial best practices tailored to each product or service line.

• Contracting officers must have access to actual cost information at both the prime and supplier levels for these contract actions.

• Establish APIs to pull cost information directly from contractors’ ERPs.

• During post-award contract administration, accurate and timely submission of Cost and Software Data Reporting (CSDR) is vital for the effective management of our major acquisition programs.

• In non-commercial, sole-source acquisitions where CSDR data is not in use, the USW(A&S) Deal Team collaborates with the DCAA to determine cost-effectiveness by comparing actual costs to prices paid.

• The Department does not intend to limit profitability when contractors realize efficiencies after negotiating a fair and reasonable price based on a realistic baseline. This effort ensures that transparency and measurement of negotiation outcomes become ingrained standards within our acquisition system.

Our Take: This could radically change the DoW-industry relationship by requiring extensive cost data at prime and sub level, regardless of contract type. The expanded expectation of direct access to industry ERP systems and the department establishing fair and reasonable margins will be… interesting. While the intent is to provide acquisition professionals better data to negotiate, it could have a chilling effects for many companies to enter or stay in the defense industry if they have viable commercial businesses.

National Security S&T Strategy

To achieve U.S. objectives in the face of existing and future challenges, America’s national security S&T posture must be focused, resilient, agile, and secure.

This will include:

• Building our S&T workforce

• Enhancing R&D infrastructure

• Targeting Federal R&D funding

• Fostering partnerships with non-Federal stakeholders

• Leveraging ally and partner capabilities.

Pillars

1. Focusing Techno-Strategic Competition

   1. Maintain and advance U.S. tech advantage on the battlefield

   2. Leverage tech to counter strategic threats to the homeland

   3. Shape tech competition toward areas of U.S. strength

2. Building Technological Resilience

   1. Anticipate national security challenges and emerging opportunities

   2. Lead in transformative emerging tech areas

   3. Enable the national resilience architecture

   4. Keep foreign adversaries out of critical tech systems and supply chains

3. Accelerate the Pace of Innovation

   1. Incentivize and enable innovators to contribute to national security.

   2. Remove unnecessary administrative and regulatory burdens

   3. Accelerate acquisition reform - Agencies should use OTAs where appropriate for eligible research, prototype, and production projects.

4. Protect National Security S&T

   1. Strengthen research security

   2. Modernize foreign investment screening and security

   3. Strengthen and streamline export controls and data transfer restrictions

Updated List of Critical and Emerging Technologies

Advanced Manufacturing and Materials | AI and Autonomy | Biotech | Comms and Networking | Directed Energy | Future Computing | Hypersonics and Advanced Materials | Info Management and Cybersecurity | Nuclear Energy | PNT | Quantum | Semiconductors and Microelectronics | Sensing and Signature Management | Space

DIU Develops Program to Supercharge Defense Industrial Base

To facilitate going fast, DIU’s latest initiative is the Bridge Program.  

• Conceived and developed over the past year by Sarah Pearson, a former Navy officer, technology executive and current chief of strategic initiatives at DIU.

• The Bridge Program seeks to drive long-term, systemic reform across the DoW.

• The Bridge Program is executing a targeted strategy to eliminate critical bottlenecks, specifically around security clearances, access to classified spaces, technology accreditations and testing.

• By dismantling these operational barriers, the program seeks to broaden the DoW’s commercial engagement aperture, mitigate risks, accelerate capability development and maximize adoption rates to deliver best-in-class commercial technologies directly to the warfighter.

• The July announcement by the President on a $10B investment in Pennsylvania’s defense industry included investment in four shared commercial classified facilities, one of which will be built in Pittsburgh using the joint funding model that the Bridge Program is prototyping.

• Bridge Program has contracted for nine additional commercially owned and operated sites across the U.S., including Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago; Cleveland; Louisville, Kentucky; and New York.

• The Bridge Program’s second line of effort focuses on establishing the fastest and most trusted accreditation portfolio within the department.

• The third line of effort T&E draws on DIU’s core competency, prototyping commercially derived technologies inside the department’s developmental and operational test infrastructure.

“When successful, we will have demonstrated a new model, a model where classified infrastructure is resourced based upon usage and becomes operational within months, not years, of the need arising. Our partners within USW(I&S), USW(A&S), and USW(R&E), as well as DIA, DCSA, and the armed services have been the single greatest unlock in achieving the early success we’ve seen so far.” Sarah Pearson, DIU Strategy Director

Related: DIU tries to transition tech to the frontlines faster with launch of new Bridge Program

This Is The New Blackbeard Cheap Hypersonic Weapon

BLUF: Castelion aims at building more affordable and usable hypersonic weapons that can be churned out at high production rates.

• Castelion provided the first view of its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon.

• The first look at what has been billed as a lower-cost missile comes as the company announces that it has secured $1B in new financing, which it says will help get its first hypersonic weapon into production as part of its ambitious manufacturing strategy.

• While hypersonic weapons have very attractive qualities, they are extremely expensive and that cost will likely keep them from being bought in large quantities or used against wider target sets.

• Castelion is focused on trying to shift that, building hypersonic capabilities that can be bought in large quantities and used more freely, even if they have reduced performance.

• A profile photo reveals a weapon with a ballistic missile-like booster, on top of which is mounted an unpowered hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV).

• Castelion previously said that it was aiming to have a more finalized Blackbeard design by 2027, so there is still potential for more design changes to come.

Related: Castelion Raises $1B Series C

RIMPAC Exercise Tests 3D-Printed Parts for Potential Pacific War

BLUF: The Naval Postgraduate School and its nonprofit partner FLEETWERX tested a new, networked approach to 3D printers and other high-tech tools they call distributed advanced manufacturing at RIMPAC.

• Distributed advanced manufacturing uses a secure but unclassified (IL-4) cloud to link over 50 sites with many different types of 3D printers, computer-controlled tools like CNC lathes and milling machines, and even robotic boats that made unmanned supply runs.

• Some of the tools were on ships participating in RIMPAC, but many others supported the exercise from bases, depots, universities, and businesses back in the United States, taking orders over the network and then sending the parts out via commercial delivery services.

• Over two weeks they had 2,741 part requests.

• Of the requests that were a good fit for the tech, the team managed to produce about 75 different parts.

• Some high-demand parts, like batteries and circuit boards, can’t be practically produced by 3D printing. And some parts passed inspection and preliminary testing, only to fail in unexpected ways once installed

“If we got into a high-intensity conflict right now in the Indo-Pacific, it would be difficult to meet all of the repair and resupply needs. Just being able to make everything talk to each other is frankly amazing. A big part of the project is just mapping out where all those resources are, figuring out what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what we can send to them to produce.” Morgan Bower, FLEETWERX Program Manager

Seaglider Drone Tested in Michigan Warfare Exercise

BLUF: REGENT Craft’s autonomous Seaglider drone, Squire, took part in a 13-day military experimentation event called Silent Swarm in Michigan, testing electronic warfare payloads alongside uncrewed systems from across the U.S. military.

• Silent Swarm ran July 13 to 24 across Michigan’s Northern Lower Peninsula and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, using the site’s combined ranges, airspace and waterways.

• The exercise focused on electromagnetic spectrum operations, testing how small, multi-domain uncrewed systems can employ and defend against signals including radar, communications, navigation, infrared and directed energy.

• Squire operated with various payloads across multiple mission types over the 13 days, testing electronic attack, electronic protection and EW support roles.

• REGENT said the event gave the company feedback from military and civilian experts across the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy.

Rheinmetall Develops Sleeper Drone Strike, A la Spider Web

BLUF: The new drone system packs a 100km range and 600mm armor penetration, deploying from mobile truck containers.

• Rheinmetall has successfully demonstrated its new FV-014 loitering munition system integrated with a modular Containerized Missile Launcher, utilizing a vehicle-mounted, hidden-launch architecture that reflects the tactics seen in Ukraine’s 2025 “Operation Spider’s Web”.

• This system shares strong operational commonalities with the Ukrainian mission through its use of a modular, standard ISO container launcher that can house up to 18 munitions on a standard transport truck.

• This architecture formalizes the “Trojan horse” logistics of Operation Spider’s Web, which relied on concealing strike drones inside modified cargo truck enclosures to infiltrate target areas undetected.

• The FV-014 loitering munition is designed for mobility and can combine surveillance, target identification, and precision strike in a single platform.

• It is capable of operating at ranges up to 100km and can function effectively against both armoured and unarmoured targets.

DARPA Came Close to Finding a Drone That Can Lift Four Times Its Own Weight

BLUF: DARPA concluded its Lift Challenge last week, and although none of the participants achieved the desired goal of building a drone capable of lifting four times its weight, they came close.

• DARPA announced that AVIDrone pushed the limits with its electric helicopter design that lifted an unprecedented payload-to-weight ratio of 3.84 to 1.

• In practical terms, that means the company’s Katana heavy-lift drone, weighing 29.3 pounds, lifted and carried a payload weight of 112.4 pounds across approximately five nautical miles.

• AVIDrone, a Canadian company with U.S. headquarters in Maryland, specializes in cargo delivery drones for the defense and commercial sectors.

• By placing first, AVIDrone won $1.25M in prize money.

“Heavy vertical flight as the next great technological inflection point that is economical for widespread adoption.” Phillip “Donna” Smith, Lift Challenge PM

SOCOM Planning to Test New Mission Autonomy Software for Unmanned Systems Program

BLUF: SOCOM plans to hold multiple events to assess industry solutions in the coming months.

• SOCOM PEO for SOF digital applications is planning to test and evaluate new mission autonomy software that could boost drone operations.

• SOCOM is pursuing the effort in partnership with the SOFWERX innovation hub to support the Unmanned Systems Autonomy and Interoperability (UxSAI) program.

• Officials seek decentralized and collaborative mission autonomy solutions for heterogeneous, multi-platform, multi-domain unmanned systems that can seamlessly integrate into the Collaborative Heterogeneous Autonomy Operations Software (CHAOS) baseline.

• Software is a critical enabler of the tech employment concepts that the department and components like SOCOM are pursuing. Officials are looking for open, modular platforms to enhance interoperability and avoid vendor lock.

OSC Posts Application for National Security Fund Finance Program

OSC is pleased to announce the formal Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for OSC's National Security Fund Finance (NSFF) program has been posted.

• OSC's National Security Fund Finance program aims to provide capital support to credit funds addressing shortages, gaps, and vulnerabilities in critical minerals vital to United States national security.

• Complete proposals due by Nov 1.

Other Defense Tech News:

• Outpaced: AI and Policy’s Role in Transforming Cybersecurity Compliance

Blue Ops and Havoc Partner to Develop Open-Architecture Autonomous Maritime Defense Systems

BLUF: Blue Ops and Havoc plan to integrate Havoc’s collaborative autonomy software and command-and-control capabilities across multiple Blue Ops uncrewed surface vessels, including the Variant 7 and additional platforms as they are introduced.

• The integration is intended to enable coordinated multi-vessel operations and expand the range of autonomous functions available to U.S. and allied defense customers.

• The partnership builds on Blue Ops’ Modular Open Systems Architecture (“MOSA”) approach to maritime systems, which is designed to support the rapid integration of autonomy, sensors, communications, payloads, and other mission technologies based on evolving operational requirements.

• Havoc’s collaborative autonomy technology has been successfully deployed on behalf of the DoW in multiple operational contexts.

Hypersonic Missile Startup Castelion Raises $1B

BLUF: Castelion, a defense-tech startup seeking to mass produce lower-cost hypersonic weapons, has raised more than $1B in new financing to expand missile production and develop a broader portfolio of offensive and defensive weapons.

• The funding will be used to expand production of Blackbeard, Castelion’s hypersonic strike missile, at its manufacturing complex in New Mexico, while accelerating work on a longer-range precision strike weapon and defensive systems for air and missile defense.

• Castelion and its investors are betting on the Pentagon’s drive to produce missiles and other munitions faster and in much larger quantities after recent conflicts exposed strains in U.S. weapons stockpiles and manufacturing capacity.

• The U.S. Navy has emerged as its main customer.

  • It awarded Castelion ~$50M in February to advance Blackbeard toward an early operational capability.

  • It followed in April by a ~$105M award to integrate, test and certify the weapon on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

• Blackbeard still faces integration, flight testing and certification before reaching the operational fielding Castelion is targeting for next year.

• The Pentagon in May signed a framework agreement with Castelion for a two-year Blackbeard production contract with a minimum production rate of 500 missiles annually following successful testing and validation.

Our Take: This is huge. Castelion has been one of a handful of companies that is showing the Pentagon how they can build and produce at scale a new generation of affordable missiles across multiple capability areas.

Are SBIR “Mills” Truly a Problem?

Jacob Schwandt and Jerry McGinn

BLUF: Last year’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) reauthorization debate was among the most contentious in the program’s four-decade history. Nowhere was that clearer than in the debate over SBIR “mills.”

• The argument was that firms with Beltway connections and grant-writing expertise collected an outsized portion of the funding, with fewer results to show for it as demonstrated by commercialization, investments, and patents.

• This led to reforms including language that set annual proposal caps and a new premium award tier tied to matching private funds.

• Two business models coexist within the program today.

  • Firms on the dual-use route develop commercial technology for both defense and civilian customers and finance that work partly with VC funds.

  • Firms on the defense route build for the military. They finance development through contracts and are judged by the follow-on business they win.

• Whether firms that win large numbers of SBIR contracts create demonstrably valuable innovation, as measured by conversion into follow-on defense contracts, patents, and private investment, sits at the heart of the debate.

• This drive to restructure the program, however, is informed by three structural misperceptions regarding the SBIR program:

  • Mills win awards but rarely “demonstrate commercial traction or follow-on contracts with non-SBIR dollars.” Over its time in the program, the median “mill” has won roughly 50 cents in non-SBIR DOD contract dollars for every SBIR dollar received, compared with 16 cents for the 3-9 group.

• • Mills innovate less. at a per-firm rather than per-dollar level, the picture inverts: 55 percent of the heaviest winners produced at least one patent within five years of an award, compared with 30 percent of the 3–-9 group.

  • Mills rarely merit private investment. In the five years after an award, about one in 20 mills report a venture-style equity raise with the SEC, compared with roughly one in 10 of the 3–9 group.

• Overall, the data suggests that many repeat winners follow a distinct business model: develop technologies through SBIR funding and commercialize through federal procurement. Venture-backed firms generally pursue a different path.

Our Take: While this topic has generated a lot of heated debate, we do think it’s possible to acknowledge that both sides are accurate. The data shows that the mills are generating solutions of some value and it also shows that the goal of using SBIR to pull novel ideas from small businesses may be more challenged. It seems fairly clear to us that these “mills” are tracking government needs much more closely and offices are using SBIR funds (which are unallocated) to fund projects that they were not able to get in the appropriated bills. This alignment is likely why they transition to programs better as opposed to truly novel solutions that require more time to gain government buy-in. We think SBIR should be used for true small businesses and to germinate ideas the government isn’t already working but we also recognize that some of these more “captured” solutions may be getting to the warfighter and contributing to fielding needed capabilities - so it’s a mixed bag.

Anduril Redesigns Tech for Army’s Soldier Borne Mission Command Program

BLUF: Anduril, one of the primary performers on the Army’s Soldier Borne Mission Command program, recently made headsets available to the Army for testing and is gearing up for the next phase of the prototyping effort.

• The SBMC project aims to develop soldier-worn heads-up displays equipped with augmented reality, night vision, AI, and C2 capabilities that can connect with other systems such as drones, among other features.

• The initiative was launched in the wake of struggles with the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program, which sought to provide similar technology for troops to enhance their battlefield capabilities and boost training but received negative feedback from soldiers who tested the equipment.

• Soldiers complained about the weight and form factor of IVAS devices and reported experiencing nausea while using them.

• For phase two, the government has approved Anduril’s pursuit of a new design that includes a digital interface. Additionally, some new camera systems will be incorporated into the phase two equipment.

“We’ve already delivered phase one systems. Two weeks ago, we had testing with the 75th Ranger Regiment at our Seattle test site, so out in the field in field-like conditions, getting feedback, getting iteration for them, so that we can incorporate that into our phase two design and make those updates iteratively and rapidly with end users.” Quay Barnett, Anduril GM of warfighter systems

Army Establishes the Way Forward With NGC2 Ecosystem

BLUF: Army teams will expand the NGC2 ecosystem out to I Corps later this year.

• Army will manage the delivery process of modernizing their tactical hardware.

• They will work to accomplish this goal through C2NOW by divesting their routine tactical systems and pouring time and resources into advanced mobile data networks that are resilient, even while on the go.

• Army leaders will also continue to iterate with 4ID and 25ID.

• They will establish baselines and award contracts for the enduring capabilities they select within those divisions, while also exploring and keeping an eye out for ways to integrate the cloud-enabled element of the NGC2 ecosystem into additional formations.

• The ecosystem now has 45 apps, and more than 60 vendors (and counting) are working on the platform. The firm and growing partnership between the Army and private sector has been crucial to these successes surrounding NGC2.

“Our signal community, represented within the 4th Infantry Division and its capable soldiers, was able to play a big role in the resilience part of NGC2. Our industry partners have given us a lot of great tools, and their ability to understand and develop proficiency in using those [tools] and overcoming technical tactical challenges out in the box was just very impressive. It gives me a lot of confidence about the path that we’re on when it comes to delivery of NGC2.” Joe Welch, PAE C2/CC2

New Drone Unit to Be Phased Out as Army Pick Makes His Mark

BLUF: Gen. Christopher LaNeve takes aim at a cutting-edge drone unit, one of several moves he has made since taking over the Army

• The Army took a major step to prepare for wars of the future in January when it established a new battalion in Europe to master the art of fighting with drones and ground robots.

• But the much touted drone assault battalion is being phased out.

• After participating in a major exercise in Germany in August and September, the unit will report its findings to guide future experimentation, shed its drone assault role and refocus on its core warfighting tasks as an airborne infantry battalion.

• The elimination of a futuristic drone battalion is part of a broader back-to-basics approach ordered up by Gen. Christopher LaNeve.

• The Army didn’t say how it plans to speed the service’s abilities in drone warfare after the drone-assault battalion is phased out.

• In a memo to the force, LaNeve outlined his plans for the direction of the Army.

Army forces must be prepared to overcome the most complex challenges our adversaries can impose and master an operational environment that looks fundamentally different from the battlefields of yesterday,

LaNeve vowed the Army would continue to change and establish units with advanced cyber, EW, and AI technologies.

Army’s Plan to Get New EW Capability in the Hands of Soldiers

BLUF: With no new starts for electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) capabilities budgeted for FY27, the Army is looking to leverage prototypes and broad requirements from other programs to get new kit in the hands of soldiers.

• Earlier this year, the Army published two documents in the name of getting new kit to soldiers faster.

  • Characteristics of Need (CoN) for EMSO systems, which is a guiding document that outlines broad based needs as opposed to hyper-specific requirements,

  • Rapid Electromagnetic Warfare & Signals Intelligence Commercial Solutions Offering (REWSI) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO), which is a library of capabilities to choose from.

• With the desire to leverage commercial systems and soliciting industry ideas to continue to continue to get after gaps through the CoN, there’s two ways to skin that cat.

• The Army is looking at experimentation in small quantities working with the Army’s V Corps, taking advantage of R&D funds. The REWSI will allow the Army to pick and choose capabilities from a library of commercial systems creating constant competition and ensuring they don’t have the same thing that might not work for every formation in every theater.

• The Army is looking to piggyback on requirements of other existing programs, both EW specific and non-EW. Other programs have EW requirements, and the Army can use some of that funding to provide more EW gear.

• With the CoN and CSO approach now, however, it provides the team more flexibility to get new capabilities to units if technology advances or if there are formation changes within the Army.

Army Advances Interoperability, Industry Partnerships

BLUF: Army speakers discussed next-generation integration, including C2, intelligence and fires in the counter-C2 fight.

“Operation Jailbreak, is an initiative that has brought together Army and industry for joint hackathon events. We’ve had a number of iterations on Jailbreak, continuing to iterate there. Expect that there will be an intel-focused on in the not-too-distant future to get after, so that would be what I point industry to, to make sure you’re tracking that, engaging that wholeheartedly and getting after delivering capability.” Chris Manning, CPE Intelligence and Spectrum Warfare.

“Gone are the days of proprietary black boxes that we’re going to have to figure out at the edge how we’re going to integrate, or we end up having to do it via swivel chair. Our near peers have access to the same technologies, these commercial technologies, so our competitive advantage is our ability to rapidly integrate, deploy these capabilities and then continuously update, and so I think . . . partnership between us and industry is critical to that.” BG Jack Taylor

Army Shifts Helicopter Training to a Contractor-run Model

BLUF: The Army is turning its helicopter pilot training over to civilian instructors and a private company as the military grapples with a rise in severe aviation accidents.

• M1 Support Services won a contract to operate the service’s new Flight School Next Program, the Army announced Thursday, shifting training and equipment to a “contractor-owned, contractor-operated” model at Fort Rucker, AL.

• The award, worth up to $10B for up to 26 years, comes amid growing concern about aviation catastrophes that showed around a 55% jump in serious accidents during the 2024 budget year, compared to four years prior.

• M1 is set to train 800 to 1,500 Army pilots each year.

“Flight School Next delivers a critical improvement in our Initial Entry Rotary Wing Training model. Simply put, it delivers new military helicopter pilots with far better foundational skills. The fact that it delivers this increased capability at a significant long-term savings to our Army is a great added benefit.” MG Clair Gill, PAE Maneuver Air

Army to Test High-Power Microwave Weapon That Shoots Drones While Driving at Full Speed

BLUF: The Army has awarded ThinKom Solutions a prototype contract worth up to $49M to develop and test a mobile high-power microwave system for countering drones.

• The deal will fund testing of ThinKom’s Alecto system, which is built to target unmanned aircraft from a moving vehicle.

• The first round of funding will pay for one of the four prototypes the Army wants, and field testing is set for 2027.

• The firm will supply the Alecto system as a high-power microwave effector under the agreement. The system will be combined with sensors, fire-control gear, and a mobile platform chosen by the government.

• The system is also designed for “fire-on-the-move” use. This means it can stay active while the vehicle is moving, which helps Army units respond to drone threats without having to stop.

MSV(L)-02 Launch Marks New Era for Army Watercraft

BLUF: The Army’s newest vessel, Maneuver Support Vessel (Light)-02 (MSV(L)-02), named Craney Island, was officially launched at an Aug. 11 ceremony held at Vigor Marine Fabrication, Vancouver, WA.

• The event marked a major milestone in Army watercraft modernization.

• Craney Island (MSV(L)-02) represents the Army’s first major watercraft acquisition in nearly three decades, delivering a generational leap in capability over its Vietnam-era predecessor, the Landing Craft Mechanized-8.

• As a modernized, digital maneuver landing craft, the MSV(L) significantly enhances the speed and effectiveness of dynamic force repositioning.

• Key design improvements include an increased payload capacity, superior speed and maneuverability, and a reduced draft that grants commanders unprecedented access to shallow-water littoral environments across the maritime domain.

• The Army's strategy for the MSV(L) has from the inception centered on integrating mature commercial off-the-shelf subsystems into a new hull form, which takes advantage of marine industry design innovation and competition.

• The Army plans to procure six production MSV(L)s.

Army Requests 133,000 GMLRS Rockets by 2034

BLUF: The Army is issuing a call to ramp up production of ground-launched rockets.

• The Army sent out a request this week for manufacturing 133,014 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), rockets by 2034, according to the Army’s Sources Sought notice.

• Contractors have until Sept. 1 to submit white papers on plans to meet that quota.

• The timeline calls for churning out 19,002 rockets per year from 2028 to 2034, with the first actual deliveries starting in February 2030.

• Current GMLRS manufacturer Lockheed Martin already announced last year that it is ramping up production capacity to 14,000 rockets annually.

• The Army’s new plan would require a nearly 36% increase in capacity on top of that.

Other Army News:

• Army network needs digital twin for training, testing, cybersecurity

• Army cyber chief reveals AI task force building agents to ‘hunt’ in the DOD network

• Elroy Air Wins $46M Army Contract

• Army Awards Airbus $140M Contract for 12 UH-72B Lakota Helicopters

Navy and RTX Accelerate Critical Munitions Production Through Tomahawk Award

BLUF: The Navy awarded Raytheon a $22.9B contract to accelerate production of Tomahawk missiles.

• By reducing procurement lead times, this contract directly supports the Department’s rapid capability fielding goals.

• This award reflects the Department’s continued transformation of its acquisition approach to meet the demands of today’s security environment.

• Under the strategic direction of PAE Munitions, led by Van Hendrey, the Navy is improving enterprise-level integration, strengthening partnerships with industry, and advancing a more agile approach to delivering weapons capabilities.

• By providing industry with greater stability and predictability, this investment enables expanded workforce capacity, increased manufacturing throughput, and stronger supply chains.

“This landmark $22.9B investment accelerates the delivery of Tomahawk missiles to our warfighters at unprecedented speed. By working closely with industry to expand the capacity of our munitions industrial base, the Department is utilizing every available tool to meet the demands of current operations, guaranteeing our naval and joint forces have the lethal firepower they need to deter aggression and protect the homeland.” Hung Cao, Acting SECNAV

Related: US awards Raytheon $22.9B seven-year deal to boost Tomahawk output

The Tomahawk Changed Modern Warfare. America Can’t Build Enough of Them.

Asher Johnson

BLUF: In 1991, a Tomahawk was the opening shot of Desert Storm. Thirty five years later, it has not been retired and continues to prove irreplaceable.

• The value of a weapon that can fly a thousand miles hugging the ground, change course, loiter if the target is not ready, and accept new coordinates mid-flight is impossible to overlook.

• Add to that a modular design that allows it to be launched from destroyers, cruisers, and submarines, one that handles both conventional and nuclear warheads, and a system equally adept whether fixed to a ship or a submarine.

• Even now, decades later, no other weapon in the American arsenal can offer all these capabilities. The Tomahawk remains a linchpin weapon to the extent no combatant commander would even think to plan a strike package without it.

• With production rate standing at about 100 to 125 missiles per year, it will take around eight to ten years just to regain previous levels of strength.

• Congress has recognized the problem and tried throwing money at it, but production rates have barely shifted. The reason is at once both simple and complicated: it is the production system itself that needs to change.

• Every Tomahawk comprises over a thousand precision-machined parts. Each component is typically produced by a small, specialized manufacturer.

• Often these shops are the only ones in the entire country to make that specific piece. Companies such as Re Manufacturing, Machina Labs, and Hadrian have begun demonstrating how greater automation, flexible precision-production capacity, and additive manufacturing could reduce some of these single-source dependencies, but such approaches have yet to be adopted across the industrial base at the scale required.

• Hadrian’s use of automated manufacturing systems and accelerated technician training offers one indication of how the labor constraint might be addressed without waiting years for a new generation of traditionally trained machinists.

• The broader shift towards software-defined and reconfigurable production, also reflected in Anduril’s Arsenal manufacturing model, suggests that defense manufacturing need not remain permanently tied to inflexible production lines and fragile supplier networks.

• The Pentagon is now confronted by a basic reality. Weapons that cannot be replenished within a reasonable time frame are weapons with severely limited deterrent power. Even if those weapons are highly effective, when supply is limited, deterrence is impaired.

Navy Looks to Carrier-Basing, Submarine Replenishment Missions for UUVs

BLUF: The Navy’s Pacific-based submarine force is exploring a number of new mission sets for UUVs as they rapidly proliferate across the fleet, including new mission sets involving carrier-basing and underway submarine replenishments for contested environments.

• Navy leaders discussed the value of the Navy’s attack submarine fleet as enablers for carrier operations, and discussed the role of UUVs in carrier operations where the uncrewed systems could serve as extensions of the strike group.

• When integrated, UUVs could extend strike group organic reconnaissance, strike, minesweeping, and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

• They could be deployed by helicopters or by the carrier itself, and could extend as far as defending against torpedoes.

• They discussed the possibility of using UUVs for underway submarine replenishment from carriers to submarines — a current challenge in the Navy especially in contested or denied environments.

“The operational environment in the Pacific continues to evolve with the rapid development of technological advancements in the undersea domain. The Pacific Submarine Force is heavily investing in unmanned capabilities to augment our manned submarines and preserve our undersea advantage across the full spectrum of submarine operations.” RADM Chris Cavanaugh, Commander, Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet

Navy Orca XLUUV Completes 1,000-Mile Pacific Transit

BLUF: Navy completed a 1,000 nautical mile transit with the service’s Orca XLUUV uncrewed submarine in July.

• The Navy, working with teams from the PEO Unmanned Small Combatants (USC), completed the service’s first long-range mission with a Boeing and Huntington Ingalls-built Orca Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV). The transit, which took the uncrewed submarine across the East Pacific

• The XLUUV patrolled for over 1,000 nautical miles — a first in the program’s history as the Pentagon looks to rapidly ramp up uncrewed operations in the Pacific to supplement crewed aircraft, ships, missile launchers and submarines as major force multipliers.

• Orca is among the Navy’s largest UUVs, capable of offensive and defensive missions identified in a Joint Urgent Operational Need tied to the Pacific theater.

• Those missions include ISR operations, mine warfare, sea bed warfare, and expeditionary support

“The operational environment in the Pacific continues to evolve with the rapid development of technological advancements in the undersea domain. The Pacific Submarine Force is heavily investing in unmanned capabilities to augment our manned submarines and preserve our undersea advantage across the full spectrum of submarine operations.” RADM Chris Cavanaugh, Commander, Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet

Navy Ditch SSN Post-Shakedown in Calculated Risk

BLUF: Director of submarine programs, VADM Rob Gaucher, accepts the Navy has made a “calculated risk” in waiving the post-shakedown availability of SSN 798

• In doing so, the service risk compounding future maintenance, which could worsen shipyard backlogs further

• At least 66 SSNs are required to fulfil the fast-attack capability but the Navy only have 53 boats available

Trump’s Steam Obsession Risks Crippling the US Carrier Fleet

Bryan Clark

BLUF: Steam power was cutting-edge technology in the nineteenth century. It is the wrong choice for a modern navy.

• President Donald Trump’s Aug. 13 executive order directing the US Navy to return to steam power for its catapults, the system used by carriers to launch fixed-wing aircraft, risks crippling fleet readiness — already at its lowest point in decades.

• Redesigning the USS Doris Miller, already under construction, to replace its electromagnetic catapults with steam systems will exacerbate the readiness crisis.

• The change is estimated to cost billions of dollars and delay the ship’s launch into the late 2030s.

• Delayed carrier production will drop the fleet to 10 flattops next year, with the USS Nimitz retiring and the USS John F. Kennedy not ready to deploy.

• The Navy adopted electromagnetic catapults in its new carriers as electric power has fewer moving parts, is more reliable, costs less and offers higher speeds compared with steam power.

• The biggest benefit of the electromagnetic catapults are their lower cost and lighter personnel requirements.

• The Ford’s crew is about 500 sailors smaller than its predecessors, largely because it is an all-electric ship outside of the engine room.

• With hundreds fewer sailors and easier-to-maintain electrical equipment, the Ford costs the Navy ~$100M less per year to operate compared with older carriers.

• That equals the price of almost 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The Navy Cannot Buy Its Way Out of the Shipbuilding Crisis

CAPT Jonathan Corrado

BLUF: CNO ADM Daryl Caudle recently put a stark number on the submarine problem. The U.S. is delivering submarines at a rate of about 1.2 per year when the minimum requirement is at least 2.3. The Navy does not deploy tons of submarine. It deploys complete units of combat power.

• The Navy’s May 2026 shipbuilding plan calls for generational investment in shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, including $124.9 billion in submarine construction across the FY2027–FY2031 plan.

• The Navy is investing in shipyards, workforce development, suppliers, advanced manufacturing, automation, and distributed shipbuilding.

• The strategic output is different: complete, combat-capable ships delivered to the fleet on a predictable cadence.

• The Navy’s shipbuilding crisis is therefore not only an acquisition problem or an industrial-capacity problem.

• Production systems do not move at the average speed of all their resources. They move at the rate of their limiting constraint. That principle is familiar in commercial manufacturing, nuclear operations, and other high-reliability enterprises, but it has strategic implications for naval shipbuilding.

• Starting more work than the system can finish does not create capacity. It creates work in process: partially completed modules, queued inspections, material staged for unavailable trades, engineering packages awaiting disposition, and ships occupying scarce space longer than planned.

• Its March 2026 acquisition restructuring directs portfolio leaders to manage production capacity and supply-chain risk while making data-driven tradeoffs across cost, schedule, and performance. That is a promising foundation. The next step is to make end-to-end throughput a dominant enterprise metric.

• America should continue investing aggressively in its maritime industrial base. The U.S. needs more skilled tradespeople, stronger suppliers, modern facilities, advanced manufacturing, and sustained demand. But those investments should be organized around the logic of the production system rather than assumed to produce output automatically.

Navy Awards Contract For Zone 5’s Combat-Proven Rusty Dagger Cruise Missile

BLUF: The Navy has awarded Zone 5 Technologies a contract to build its combat-proven Rusty Dagger low-cost cruise missile for the U.S. Navy’s new CHAOS cruise missile program.

• The award is the second contract signed under the relatively new CHAOS effort which seeks to deliver modular, surface-launched cruise missiles to U.S. and allied partners.

• The latest award to Zone 5 represents a much bigger step in fielding combat-proven, capable cruise missiles for the U.S. and its allies — particularly in the Pacific.

• Unlike RAACM-ER, Zone 5’s Rusty Dagger is a weapon already being battle-tested in highly contested Russian airspace, giving Zone 5 a distinct, measurable advantage over competitors as its real-world effects continue to materialize — even with the relatively small batches being delivered.

• The Navy’s CHAOS program is one of many new efforts that stem from the Pentagon’s push towards low-cost, high-capacity strike weapons.

“As adversaries increasingly deploy advanced area denial systems, coalition and allied forces face significant challenges in maintaining credible, modern, and affordable anti-ship capabilities. CHAOS closes this capability gap, by delivering a highly capable, adaptable, and exportable maritime strike solution that overcomes present day obsolescence and supply chain challenges.” CAPT Sarah Abbott, PMX-201 program manager

Navy Invests in Shield’s Vertical-Takeoff CCA; Air Force Holds Off

BLUF: Shield AI, a specialist vying to provide the autonomy software for the Air Force’s autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft, has won government backing for its X-BAT drone—but not from USAF.

• The $50M cash infusion comes from the Navy and the DIU, which see intriguing possibilities for a jet designed to take off and land vertically from a trailer.

• The aircraft is powered by the same F-110 General Electric engine that powers an F-16. With an airframe smaller and lighter than the Viper, the engine can generate enough thrust for vertical takeoff and to land in a manner similar to SpaceX’s reusable rockets.

• For the Navy, X-BAT could launch and return to surface combatants of all kinds, not just aircraft carriers. It would give the Navy more ways to deploy airpower.

• Navy destroyers and amphibious ships already carry munitions and fuel, so they don’t have the logistical problems the Air Force would have in its ACE concept of operations.

• The Air Force, meanwhile, is still sorting through the logistics and operational concepts for its CCA.

“If the Air Force was going to look into it, it would be … not necessarily eliminating the big, fixed bases that need a lot of defense but allow you to generate high-tempo operations, if you can protect them. But it would be to augment that by complicating an enemy’s targeting problem. It’s distributing your airpower and making it easier to survive and and stay active in future fights.” Gen Mike Holmes (Ret)

Other Navy News:

• Acting SECNAV Appoints M. Barry Tanner as Navy CIO

• Lockheed Martin and Navy Demo AI-Powered Sub Hunter at RIMPAC

• E-2D Advanced Hawkeye Block II Passes Critical Design Review as Navy Plans to Expand Fleet

RIP to Former SECAF James Roche. He was an early advocate of unmanned aircraft, air-space integration, expeditionary operations and joint networking. A visionary for our current times, he must have been pleased to see some positive movement in those areas before his passing.

Air Force Wants Family of Expendable Target Drones That Can Mimic Everything from Stealth Fighters to UAV Swarms

BLUF: The Air Force is looking for a new family of aerial targets that can replicate an extremely broad range of airborne threats, from small drones operating in swarms to stealth fighters, large UAS, strategic bombers, and airborne early warning aircraft.

• The service wants these targets to be realistic enough to challenge modern sensors and weapons, but inexpensive and simple enough that they can be routinely risked, and even destroyed, during testing.

• The RFI calls for industry proposals “including commercial, modified commercial, dual-use, and non-developmental solutions.”

• For advanced fighter aircraft, the Air Force wants targets capable of “supersonic capabilities (up to and exceeding Mach 1.6 at 40,000 feet)” along with high-agility and high-G combat maneuvers.

• The Air Force has been trying for years now to acquire new full-size target drones however, despite the launch of programs such as the 5th Generation Aerial Target (5GAT), progress in this regard has been extremely limited.

• The Air Force is therefore effectively asking industry to find the sweet spot where high-fidelity threat representation and mass-produced affordability intersect.

Our Take: This is definitely the right way to explore tradespace although it would have been helpful to issue cost and production targets to inform this exercise since that will also be a big determinant in how this question is answered. For the higher end targets, there will be a cap on how inexpensive they can be with high-speed propulsion, stealthy coatings and likely very costly sensors.

Related Articles:

• Air Force Wants New Family of Target Drones Ranging from Expendable to Sophisticated

• Air Force plans Mach 1.6 target drones to test weapons against simulated enemy jets

Air Force Tests Portable Ground Stations for Commanding and Controlling CCAs

BLUF: The Air Force recently tested prototypes for a portable ground station (called the Portable Command and Control Enclave, or C2E) for commanding and controlling semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

• Beyond fighter pilots, CCAs could be controlled from battle management aircraft like the E-7 Wedgetail - but the portable C2E effort is focused on the ground.

• The prototypes being evaluated are specifically meant to be C2 systems that can be rapidly deployed and operated worldwide, even in austere environments.

• After the command-and-control systems’ mobility and footprints were tested, the vendors carried out demonstrations to show how well their software operated.

• Anduril has already touted the ability of its own system, the Menace-T, to control its version of the CCA.

• The information collected from the Air Force’s Ohio demonstrations will help speed up the acquisition strategy for C2E and help shape the selection process going forward. A second C2E prototype phase will also soon begin.

• Once the Air Force selects a C2E system, the service said, it will go to the Experimental Operations Unit currently testing CCAs to support agile combat employment operations.

“Getting prototypes into the hands of our operational and acquisitions wafighters for a swift, combined evaluation is a direct embodiment of acquisition transformation.” Col. Eric Reagan, Agile Development Office director

Our Take: This is real goodness. The Air Force has been slow to back ACE concepts with real equipment that is suited for the likely environments. This progress shows they may be taking some serious steps forward. We definitely agree with Col Reagan that this is how you do it - generate some prototypes, get operator feedback, then field an MVP that addresses a core need and iterate over time.

Over a Year in, Experimental Ops Unit Matures CCA Concepts and Gets a New Commander

BLUF: The ceremony in which Lt. Col. Lyndon Bartlett assumed command of the EOU came a little more than a week after a groundbreaking exercise at Creech, in which the Air Force’s first CCAs practiced operating in simulated operational environments.

• It marked the EOU’s second exercise with CCAs, following the first in April.

• Anduril reps said EOU operators assigned tasks to CCAs from multiple locations, showing how disaggregated control of the drones could cut manpower requirements and allow Airmen to fly CCAs from austere bases.

• Operational users oversaw daily mission autonomy flights of the prototype YFQ-44A for the first time, some days generating multiple sorties.

• In the near future, controllers will be able to direct multiple CCAs at once which could mean using navigators or WSOs to control CCAs—but officials have noted that the CCA program faces “cultural headwinds” as it tries to change mindsets.

Air Force Awards JASSM Missile Engine Contract

BLUF: The Air Force has awarded a contract to GE Aerospace and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for the engineering, manufacturing, and development of the GEK800 engine as a second-source propulsion system for JASSM missiles.

• The partners reported more than 50 successful ground engine starts during testing at their respective facilities.

• It’s officially designated the F143-ZZ-100 and is an 800-lb thrust class turbofan.

Air Force-Backed Mini Gas-Cooled Reactor Gets High-Power Nuclear Fuel Deal Support

BLUF: US-based NANO Nuclear Energy and Quadrant Nuclear Industries have signed an initial agreement to secure specialized nuclear fuel.

• Under this arrangement, the companies will develop plans for the future supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU.

• The fuel will come from Quadrant’s planned facility at Idaho National Laboratory. This site aims to produce up to eighteen metric tons of enriched fuel each year.

• The primary user of this fuel will be NANO Nuclear’s KRONOS micro modular reactor. Each unit produces between 10 and 45 megawatts of thermal energy.

• The reactor also operates independently from regional power grids. This technical setup led to an earlier Phase I development with AFWERX.

• Military planners are evaluating the design as a standalone power source for remote bases.

How Space Force Is Fighting Wars Today—and Preparing for the Future

Check out this WSJ interview Gen Chance Salzman.

New Report Takes Closer Look at the Space Force Spending Surge

BLUF: A new analysis of the FY27 defense budget finds that the proposed surge in Space Force spending is concentrated in missions like moving-target tracking, missile warning, command and control and classified programs.

• The proposed $71.3B Space Force budget if fully funded, would amount to a 120% increase over FY26 and the largest percentage increase for any military service since 1952.

• The base Space Force request is $59.2B, with another $12.1B dependent on Congress approving a separate reconciliation package.

• About 75% of the proposed Space Force increase is concentrated in classified activities, moving-target indication, missile warning and C2 programs.

• The Space Data Network is the second-largest Space Force program in the request which is a proliferated low Earth orbit mesh network and ground infrastructure designed to move large volumes of military data with low latency.

Space Force Launches Space-Based Sensing & Targeting Portfolio

BLUF: The Space Force launched its Space-Based Sensing & Targeting portfolio acquisition group earlier this year, which is the newest of eight groups focused on acquiring technology, representing a major change in the way that the military is approaching its procurement system and awarding contracts.

• One of the sensing and targeting group’s initial contracts was a $4.16B award to SpaceX to accelerate the delivery of a space-based sensing layer designed to track and target airborne threats globally. It’s part of the development of a lower earth orbit mesh network that will be integrated into the military’s capabilities.

• Over the next six to 12 months, the new hardware will be launched, even if it’s in a prototype phase. The plan is to take advantage of iterative development by delivering in smaller chunks that can be awarded contracts in segments.

• Multiple companies will compete to provide sensor technology throughout.

“We don’t want to miss the moment. We want to capture the innovation and the new ideas and the newer capabilities that are available to leverage commercial production lines to minimize our nonrecurring engineering. It reduces risk for the Space Force. We have a warfighting imperative to deliver at speed and scale.

What I’m looking for ideally is to leverage something that works commercially so that we reduce that development risk on our end and get the economy of scale. Show us that the capability works. Prove it on orbit or in a testing environment, not on a pitch deck. That’s a compelling case for us to buy it,” Colonel Ryan Frazier, PAE for Space Based Sensing & Targeting

“We make sure that the program managers and the portfolio executives have the resources to develop strategies or award contracts – and we develop the workforce.” Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant, commander of Space Systems Command.

Launch Called Major Vulnerability for Space Market

BLUF: Space is becoming an increasingly significant domain for national security and defense, and government organizations need to focus more resources on boosting launch operations.

• SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance are the only two providers certified for National Security Space Launch missions, with Blue Origin in the process of certifying its New Glenn rocket.

• One constraint is the integration of launch operations into the National Airspace System since the FAA has to manage the airspace during launches.

• The Commercial Space Federation has been “actively encouraging” the FAA to include certain tools and technologies within its new air traffic control system and common automation platform.

“Right now, there aren’t enough launch providers, even though the space market has reached a point where it can enable more, and “we need them now.” Mike French, Space Policy Group founder and senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group.

The Space Industry’s Next Challenge: Supply Chain Resilience

Doug Anderson and Steve Jordan Tomaszewski

BLUF: America’s space economy is scaling faster than its industrial base can support.

• Commercial constellations are proliferating, national security architectures are more distributed and resilient and civil missions are growing more ambitious.

• In 2025 alone, more than 3,700 objects were launched from the United States, nearly ten times the level seen in 2019.

• Yet the supply chain supporting this growth was built for a different market, one defined by lower production volumes and more predictable demand.

• For decades, the industry operated around highly specialized, bespoke systems produced in relatively limited quantities.

• Today, the sector is transitioning toward industrial-scale production. Increasingly, the challenge is no longer whether companies can design advanced technologies.

• It is whether they can reliably build and deliver them at the speed and scale the market now demands.

• Manufacturers are already facing bottlenecks in specialized components including optical intersatellite links, propellant tanks and radiation-tolerant connectors. In some areas, the industry relies on as few as three major domestic suppliers.

• Suppliers are relying more heavily on existing infrastructure rather than expanding capacity, extending lead times and reducing the ability to respond in a dynamic market.

• Suppliers remain cautious about making long-term investments because procurement timelines and funding profiles remain difficult to predict.

• Correcting this will require better coordination across the industrial base.

• One opportunity would be to build on existing collaboration between industry, suppliers and government entities.

• In the next 12 months, three priorities deserve focused attention:

  • establishing more consistent demand signaling so suppliers can invest with confidence

  • expanding testing and qualification capacity as a shared national asset rather than a program-by-program afterthought

  • modernizing compliance processes and regulations so that suppliers can grow the space industrial base.

Three Pillars of a Resilient Hybrid SATCOM Architecture

BLUF: Space Force is evolving its hybrid space architecture (HSA) to ensure defensive readiness against advanced threats. Resilience of such a vital self-healing ecosystem is essential to sustaining the capabilities that will be delivered by this web of satellite assets. There are three key pillars to achieving it.

• First is an interoperable terminal strategy.

  • Terminals to receive satellite communications (SATCOM) are often high-cost capital investments with operational lives that span decades.

  • The Space Force should not be expected to buy new equipment to accommodate a SATCOM provider’s proprietary products, or become vendor-locked to a particular service because of its terminals.

  • True resilience demands a terminal-agnostic strategy that can ensure interoperability when roaming across multiple orbits and spectrum frequencies.

• Second is a digital environment that supports experimentation and informed decision-making.

  • From modeling concept of operations, to system design, validation and more, digital twin-based simulation will allow the Space Force to gain a deeper understanding of new systems capabilities before procurement commitments.

  • The result is faster adoption and time-to-benefit from assets once they are placed on orbit.

• The third pillar is having the right contract mechanisms to make it all work.

  • The Space Force must be able to source capability on a timeline that meets the changing threat environment.

  • Sourcing the technologies needed to bolster defenses in this environment requires modifications to customary acquisition methods.

• A greater challenge is the planning, programming, budgeting and execution (PPBE) process, which is predominantly driven by congressional budget cycles and oversight.

Our Take: We couldn’t agree more with this framework.

Space Force Brings 5 Companies On-Noard Space Data Network

BLUF: The Space Force has announced awards to five companies, as part of a project to demonstrate that its emerging Space Data Network (SDN) will be able to establish connectivity to multiple commercial satellite networks.

• The five winners are Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems.

• With the exception of Amazon LEO, the companies are all under contracts with the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit Transport Layer for data relay.

• SDN is the Space Force’s emerging satellite network-of-networks designed to provide low-latency, high-speed connectivity between US military sensors and shooters ― to support the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

• SSC made clear these awards are designed as a two-step process.

  • The first step in the new effort will demonstrate ground-to-space and space-to-space data transport between systems provided by the various contractors, and interconnectivity with the SDN backbone.

  • The second step operationalizes these connections in orbit to field Space Exchange Point (SEP) satellites.

• The core objective of these combined investments is to ensure future communication payloads can integrate seamlessly with competing spacecraft buses, eliminating the need for costly, custom redesigns.

SpaceWERX Selects 11 Firms to Scale Technologies for Military Space

BLUF: SpaceWERX, the Space Force’s innovation arm, selected 11 companies for a new round of public-private funding agreements aimed at moving space technologies from prototypes toward operational use.

• The 11 agreements are expected to draw a combined $562.5M from government organizations and private investors.

• SpaceWERX said about $245M is government funding; the balance includes anticipated private investment and other matching funds.

• The companies are Agile Space Industries, Antares Nuclear, EO Solutions, Hydrosat, Kall Morris, Method Security, Muon Space, Scout Space, Sedaro, Star Catcher Industries and ThinkOrbital.

USSF to Operate Legacy Weather Sats Until at Least 2028 as It Works on Replacements

BLUF: The Space Force had anticipated decommissioning the three remaining Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft this year but will instead maintain them until at least 2028 as it transitions to a new replacement architecture.

• The Space Force launched its first DMSP satellites in the 1960s, and the last three functioning spacecraft were sent up in 2003, 2006, and 2009—far outlasting their initial five-year service life estimate.

• While there has been some degradation to the sensors and devices that control the satellites’ orbit and orientation—known as “attitude controls”—they’re still performing their mission as required.

• The near-term plan is to split DMSP sensors across two programs: the Weather System Follow-on Microwave program, or WSF-M, and the Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather System, or EWS.

  • WSF-M satellites will identify and characterize tropical storms and high winds and measure snow soil and depth.

  • EWS satellites will carry electro-optical infrared sensors to provide imagery of cloud coverage and forecasts for military planners.

• The first WSF-M satellite launched in April 2024 and the Space Force accepted it for initial operations a year later in 2025. Testing delays have pushed the next major milestone, full operational capability, from September 2025 to early 2027.

• A Pentagon acquisition report notes that the slowdown is partially linked to resource constraints at the Air Force’s 557th Weather Wing, which supports the modeling platform that’s used to calibrate and validate systems like WSF.

• A second WSF-M is slated to launch in early 2027 with the first EWS satellite scheduled to launch this year or next and the second in 2028.

Pentagon is Getting a Satellite Sweeper That Can Roam Three Orbits

BLUF: Firefly Aerospace’s Elytra is advancing a “satellite sweeper” capable of chasing and deorbiting aging spacecraft of different sizes across three orbital zones.

• This is positioned as a cost-conscious answer to the Pentagon’s growing orbital debris problem, where defunct spacecraft and other objects can threaten critical space infrastructure.

• The spacecraft can rendezvous with a target in orbit, inspect it, and then use its thrusters to push the spacecraft into Earth’s atmosphere, where it can burn up during reentry.

• Its proprietary design allows Elytra to operate in low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), and geostationary orbit (GEO), giving it the reach to pursue different classes of spacecraft across a wide range of orbital environments.

• The company said the spacecraft is highly maneuverable and carries substantial fuel reserves. Its payload capacity also supports a range of missions, including spacecraft delivery, deorbit services, communications, and lunar imaging.

• Firefly is set to complete a preliminary design review for the US Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and Space Development Agency to demonstrate that Elytra’s core technologies can perform as intended.

• Separately, Firefly holds a DIU contract for a space domain awareness mission using Elytra, with launch planned no earlier than 2027.

Our Take: This is a big deal to be able to operate in multiple orbits. If executed affordably, this could be a gamechanger.

New Space Force EW Unit Pairs Multiple Weapon Systems in a First

BLUF: The Space Force activated the 1st Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron earlier this month, a new unit with a few unique characteristics—it is manned mostly by former Air National Guardsmen.

• The squadron will actually have personnel distributed across five locations, will operate both the new Meadowlands system and the Bounty Hunter weapon.

Other Space Force News:

• NRO to Expand Use of HawkEye 360’s Satellite Intelligence

Golden Dome Chief Touts Progress as Funding Questions Loom

BLUF: Gen. Michael Guetlein brought the Pentagon’s case for Golden Dome to North Dakota, headlining an event Aug. 20 hosted by two of the missile defense program’s strongest Senate advocates (Sen. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer).

• Cramer argues that existing U.S. missile defenses are too limited to address the range of threats now facing the homeland. He is also positioning North Dakota’s military infrastructure for a role in the Golden Dome architecture.

• Cramer said he is trying to dispel what he sees as a misconception that Golden Dome is “all new stuff.” Much of the architecture involves connecting and expanding missile defense systems that already exist or are under development.

• Guetlein offered an expansive account of the threats Golden Dome is being designed to counter, portraying the architecture to counter conventional ICBMs, larger drones, low-flying cruise missiles, maneuvering hypersonic weapons and fractional orbital bombardment systems.

• Guetlein also provided new details about a recent integrated missile defense test which he said demonstrated that capabilities being purchased with initial funding would be effective against the threats the program is intended to counter.

• Guetlein pushed back on criticism that Golden Dome has made little progress noting that the program office wasn’t established until July of 2025, meaning the effort has been up and running for only about 12 months.

• Since Congress provided the initial $22.5 billion, roughly 90% has been obligated.

MDA Awards X-Bow $11M for Low-Cost Interceptor Development

BLUF: Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is tapping X-Bow to develop and field a cheaper, more mass-producible alternative to the exquisite Patriots and THAAD interceptors.

• The New Mexico-based solid rocket motor startup shared that it’s secured an $11M Phase II follow-on contract to develop and flight-test the X-Bow Low-Cost Interceptor (LCI) as part of the MDA’s RRSLT program.

• Under the deal, X-Bow will power the LCI with its own SRM, which, for one, is their whole thing, and, for two, solves one of the primary component supply chain chokepoints in interceptor production.

• The MDA’s LCI program seeks “enabling or revolutionary technologies” that “decrease the costs of kinetically intercepting ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile threats” to a sub-$750,000 price point.

Golden Dome Secrecy Poses Challenge for Estimating Costs

BLUF: While Pentagon officials have revealed some details about the architecture behind the Golden Dome missile defense project, crafting an independent cost estimate for a largely classified program remains a challenge.

• The Pentagon expects the program to cost $185B to build over the next 10 years but experts and government analysis have argued the bill will be much higher.

• One of the first outside estimates, released last year by the American Enterprise Institute, projected costs ranging anywhere from $250B to $2.4T.

• In May, the CBO pegged the program’s cost at $1.2T.

• The space-based interceptor constellation would be the most expensive element of this architecture by far, costing $743B over 20 years, or 60% of the total cost.

• CBO’s report also includes the cost of a satellite sensing layer—which it projects would require about $90B to develop, field, and maintain—as well as the systems needed to coordinate the broader architecture.

• Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein has pushed back on CBO’s estimates, saying they’re built on inaccurate assumptions about what his team is actually building.

Our Take: This is a classic dilemma for the cost estimating community which generally relies on legacy pricing to inform its estimates. With the proliferation of new vendors with novel approaches and a focus on affordably, we concur with Gen Guetlein that this is achievable for a much lower price tag than CBO.

Space Force Payload Lifts Off on Japanese Satellite

BLUF: A novel program to integrate U.S. and Japanese space capabilities was “completed” last week when a Japanese navigation satellite carrying a U.S. Space Force payload launched into orbit.

• The QZS-7 satellite will be operated by Japan and augment the GPS constellation in the Pacific region. Its U.S.-hosted payload will provide “near real-time data” on geosynchronous orbits above the Pacific.

• This is the second USSF payload to be hosted on a satellite in Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, following the first’s launch in February 2025.

• Both hosted payloads will be operated by the Space Force’s Mission Delta 2, which is responsible for space domain awareness.

• Japan is not the only U.S. ally to operate a satellite with an American military payload. Two satellites procured by Space Norway launched with USSF payloads for Arctic communications in August 2024.

Related Article: Space Force and Japan Complete QZSS Hosted-Payload Program with Launch of QZS-7

Despite Sovereignty Push, Europe Still Open to U.S. Defense Firms

BLUF: Europe is increasing defense spending to boost its industrial base, investing in more sovereign capabilities to reduce reliance on other countries, particularly the U.S. Despite the shift, opportunities for U.S.-based defense contractors are still available, primarily in manufacturing and production capabilities.

• While the concept of strategic autonomy is not new, the war in Ukraine has served as a wake-up call that has exposed Europe’s financial limitations and capability gaps.

• In the U.S., the export of defense-related articles and services is controlled by ITAR, which can be a hindrance to foreign customers.

• To spur the development of sovereign capabilities, EU adopted the Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, a new financial instrument designed to provide loans to member states to speed up defense readiness by allowing urgent and major investments in support of the European defense industry.

• SAFE stipulates that components produced outside the European Union and Ukraine can constitute no more than 35% of the total cost of the end product.

• However, SAFE also acknowledges that most EU defense products contain at least some third-country components.

• The European defense market demands more investment, creating a huge opportunity for U.S. manufacturers.

Saildrone Kicks Off Production in Europe

BLUF: USV giant Saildrone announced that they’re officially expanding their presence in Europe with a new, larger Copenhagen office and production in the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland.

• The USVs come in a few different flavors: The 23-foot Explorer, 33-foot Voyager, and 65-foot Surveyor. Earlier this year, they also unveiled a big ol’ 250-ton, engine-powered drone boat called Spectre, built with Lockheed Martin.

• Four Voyagers also participated in NATO’s Task Force X experiment in the Gulf of Finland and western Baltic last summer essentially acting as the detection layer, cueing faster unmanned vessels to investigate contacts.

Related Article: Saildrone expands European footprint with production plans in 3 countries

China’s Reusable Space Launch Booster Recoveries Have Major Military Implications

BLUF: Chinese firm LandSpace achieved the country’s first successful recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster on land. This follows China’s first-ever recovery of a reusable space launch rocket booster last month.

• Reusable boosters can lower costs and increase the tempo of launches dramatically, which would be extremely beneficial for China’s already massively expanding military and national security space enterprise.

• It could also help close the gap on commercial launch costs with the U.S.

Our Take: This is a dangerous development for the U.S. military. We’ve already known that China had adopted a SpaceX-type approach to development where they are willing to fly earlier to derisk and accelerate fielding timelines. Given the focus on their space program, we can expect that they will 10X this initial success and have the capacity to launch at faster rates than expected. The craziest part of this is that this innovation came from a state-owned enterprise (CASC).

China Could Deploy Uncrewed Aerial, Underwater Drones to Counter Attacks Near Contested Islands

BLUF: A report has reveals that China is exploring a new model of maritime defense in which contested islands in the South China Sea could be protected by networks of autonomous machines rather than relying primarily on human personnel.

• The proposal was discussed in a paper published in July in Command Control & Simulation, a Chinese military-technology journal supervised by China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

• Researchers envisage a coordinated system involving aerial drones, uncrewed vessels operating on the sea surface and underwater vehicles. Together, these platforms would form a multi-layered defensive network around islands and reefs.

• The idea represents a shift from conventional island defense, where soldiers and manned ships perform most surveillance and response tasks.

• Instead, the system would use numerous relatively inexpensive machines that could monitor different parts of the surrounding maritime environment.

• Aerial drones could provide broad surveillance from above, while surface and underwater platforms could watch approaches that are difficult to monitor continuously from land.

• Artificial intelligence could then help process information from these different platforms and identify potential threats.

Our Take: This is currently a research proposal but one to watch given its viability and alignment with other PLA efforts.

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Every fall, Lucy holds the football. Every fall, Charlie Brown convinces himself this time is different. She’s smiling, the White House loves defense tech now, the NDAA has multiple reforms in it, everybody’s talking about commercial-first acquisition. So, he takes a running start. She pulls it away. He lands on his back and stares at the sky in deep surprise. He naively thought the Pentagon was different this time around.

The Kickers

SpaceX is on a good track. It received over $8B in new awards for space launch, AMTI and data network capabilities in recent months and continues to benefit from strong NASA and commercial business. Palantir has a robust commercial line plus a government-wide business. In defense, they have large enterprise contracts with the Army, CDAO, and SOCOM along with large efforts with the Navy and Space Force. Their rising stock price reflects strong financial performance.

Anduril remains short of awards at that scale but has won significant contracts for missile defense, low-cost cruise missiles, and Lattice. It also has a promising pipeline for Navy UUVs, Air Force CCAs, Army SBMC, various Space Force efforts, and ongoing c-UAS work. Saronic appears solidly positioned with a large USV production contract and a strong lead for follow-on MUSV marketplace awards.

The Defense Tech Kicking Percentage

0.84%

Despite the awards and promise, the Reagan Institute’s 2026 NSIB Report Card shows the top 15 defense tech disruptors received just 0.84% of total Pentagon obligated dollars in FY25, up from 0.7% in FY24 and 0.4% in FY23. The top five legacy primes still pull in obligation dollars at roughly 42 times the rate of those defense tech disruptors combined.

Silicon Valley Defense Group’s NatSec100 data shows that over the lifetime of the current crop of venture-backed national security startups, private investors have put in roughly $118B and gotten back only about $16B in federal contracts. That’s a 13.5% recovery rate on capital already deployed. The trend is not improving. In 2025 alone, nearly $40B was invested against $4.3B in contracts to the top 15, a measly 10% recovery rate for the year. 2026 is not shaping up to be much better with the DoW apparently doubling down on legacy system modernization.

Bain’s market-sizing work put the 2025 aggregate valuation of VC-backed defense tech firms (excluding SpaceX) at roughly $86 billion. At a 5 times revenue multiple consistent with mature defense tech comps, that valuation implies these companies need to generate approximately $17B in annual revenue. Even under more optimistic assumptions that push required revenue toward $25–30B by 2030, the sector would need to capture roughly 2–6% of U.S. defense investment accounts. That remains achievable, but only if 2026 and 2027 trend toward the goal rather than away from it.

Backyard Football vs the NFL

If you want to see where the actual money goes when Congress and the Pentagon get serious about buying something at scale, look at the last month. The Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII a combined $76.6B for five Columbia-class and nine Block VI Virginia-class submarines. Days later, the Army handed Lockheed Martin a $53.86B mod to its PAC-3 MSE contract and a $35.3B increase for THAAD. This week the Navy awarded RTX a $23B contract to accelerate Tomahawk missile production.

The framework agreements awarded under the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles (LCCM) program to 3 new entrants (Anduril, CoAspire, and Zone 5 Technologies) promises to order and deliver 10,000 missiles between 2027 and 2029 is a promising step forward. The promise to award Castelion a production contract for 500-12,000 lower cost hypersonic missiles is also promising. However, in context the LCCM order is only a max of ~$3B potentially spread across four companies (Leidos is also in the mix) across three years. The max Castelion buy (~$5B) would be significant, but DoW seems to only be committing to a 500 unit buy currently.

In context, these low-cost munition frameworks pale in comparison as the RTX award which exceeds the lifetime federal obligations of the entire NatSec100 cohort. The PAC-3 award is 3.4 times. The submarine award is nearly five times.

Programs like the Navy’s MUSV Marketplace and Air Force’s CCA are also promising but the MUSV only has $4.4B across the FYDP spread over some undetermined number of companies. CCAs are much better positioned to generate value for defense tech with $9.5B projected over the FYDP with RDT&E to also support the next increment. So, whether that is allocated across one or two vendors, that will be an example of a program going in the right direction.

The Football is Still Held by Lucy

Overall, this isn’t a criticism of procuring advanced systems like submarines or advanced munitions. Nuclear deterrence and layered air defense are critical capabilities, and these programs were overdue for serious investment, but it is a serious data point for investors. When the Pentagon decides to write a real check, it still reaches for a legacy prime building an exquisite platform. Autonomy, attritable systems, and software-defined capability are not competing for the same dollars at the moment, and it might be a decade or more before the Pentagon buys systems at scale that the defense tech community is offering today. Pretending otherwise sets founders and investors up for a fall.

Some may feel that the tide is turning with clear public direction from the White House, the Pentagon leadership, and Congress for commercial-first acquisition. However, most officials in key roles seem to still be executing with the same tactics they always have with a greater focus on compliance than speed or adaptability.

While the executives are setting a clear direction, two and three layers down the resistance continues. Until those Lucys are removed or directly ordered to change, commercial-first remains a desired strategy, not an execution behavior.

Where Do We Go From Here?

If you’re building or investing in defense tech, the honest read is this: assume you are not Anduril, Palantir, or SpaceX, because statistically you almost certainly aren’t. Price your business on the obligation data that actually exists, not on the multiple your last round justified. Watch what the Pentagon does with real dollars, not what it says in a strategy document. Recognize that submarine and interceptor money is not coming out of the same pool your autonomy or sensing company is chasing.

Many startups will fail. Some will be acquired by larger traditional or non-traditional defense companies at more realistic multiples. A smaller number will grow into new primes and critical suppliers that fuel competition, close gaps in the supply chain, deliver novel technology solutions, and keep continuous pressure on the established primes to perform and control costs. That is a healthy industry outcome.

If the Pentagon is truly serious about rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy, delivering warfighting capabilities at speed and scale, and placing industry on a wartime footing, it must act differently. It must invest in a broader range of capabilities from a broader mix of companies. It must demonstrate a commercial first commitment rather than imposing a costly, heavily regulated environment that only legacy companies can navigate. It must rethink contracting norms if it expects innovative entrepreneurs to invest private capital to rapidly develop novel warfighting solutions.

At the very least, we should be getting close to that $25–30B number by 2030 to build the hedge force, improve distribution of capabilities, enable operations from smaller locations and enable enemy surprise with asymmetric capabilities.

For those founders who decide the kick is still worth attempting:

• Start with Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) who are genuinely empowered with budget flexibility, authorities that span R&D through sustainment, and a mandate to deliver at speed and scale while regenerating the industrial base.

• Rapid prototyping that pivots cleanly into production will earn the greater funding allocations. The test is simple: Can you put meaningful warfighting capability in the hands of the Combatant Commanders that improves decision speed and delivers lethality?

• Work directly with those PAEs and their program offices. Leverage CSOs, OTAs, and the Middle Tier of Acquisition to run rapid, iterative prototypes, field a viable v1, then keep iterating on real warfighter feedback and advancing technology.

• Bring the low-cost, high-volume scale that complements the few exquisite, high-cost systems rather than pretending to replace them.

• Remind every stakeholder of statute and regulation: commercial-first is required, and contracting officers already have the authority to treat non-traditional defense companies as commercial. They have the tools and authorities but often lack the will to use them.

While Charlie Brown never was able to pull off the kick with Lucy, we can build and sustain a new generation of kickers to augment the behemoth primes, build more resiliency into the industrial base and make America more secure.

The biggest stories across the Department and the defense industry this week:

• The Pentagon wants more munitions fast and the primes explore low-cost.

• Improving accounting for contractors and assessing AI for industry selections.

• The Army opens up test ranges and ground autonomy.

• The White House directs the Navy to get serious on shipbuilding

• Air Force doctrine and tactics must evolve with tech and new training needed.

• Space Force issues unfunded priority list and looks to lasers for counter pLEO

• Golden Dome current programs and future unclear with funding under threat.

• China is increasing use of drones to invade Taiwan; Taiwan is responding in kind.

DONRCO Establishes National Security Plug and Play Consortium for Rapid Acquisition of Advanced Technologies

BLUF: The Department of Navy Rapid Capabilities Office (DON RCO) has established the National Security Plug and Play Consortium (NSPPC), designed to integrate advanced technology into operational systems at scale and speed.

• The NSPPC, managed by the Creative Defense Foundation, will connect the DON with a network of technology companies and innovators. This consortium will provide accelerated research, prototyping, and production of vital technologies through various Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs).

• The NSPPC will focus on sourcing technologies that work immediately with existing systems, providing accelerated procurement for the DON enterprise through easier access to non-traditional partners and off-the-shelf solutions. With a broad scope that provides flexible contracting to all DON domains, it will include prize challenges, Commercial Solutions Offerings, disruptor events, and wargaming challenges.

• The Creative Defense Foundation will host the first meeting of the NSPPC on Sept. 18, bringing together consortium members, DoW leadership, Congressional stakeholders and defense industry partners.

• SECNAV established the DON RCO in August 2025 to drive the rapid delivery of transformative solutions to solve the hardest operational problems.

• With a focus on providing capabilities within zero to three years, the DON RCO leverages existing technologies in new ways and adapts emerging technologies and unconventional concepts to ensure the Navy can win decisively - both now and in the future.

“This consortium gives us another tool to move at the speed the warfighter demands It expands our access to industry, creates more pathways for competition and innovation, and—most importantly—helps us get relevant capability into the hands of Sailors and Marines faster. That is what the DONRCO is built to do.” VADM Seiko Okano, DON RCO Director

“Through the NSPPC, the DONRCO is providing our partners across the PAEs and their Rapid Capability Cells with another tool to meet their demand signals. Delivering at the speed of relevance is at the heart of the DONRCO, and the consortium is a means to make that happen.” Jim Juster, DONRCO Deputy Director

Our Take: We (Creative Defense Network) are proud to support the Creative Defense Foundation in the execution of the NSPPC. The consortium will enable rapid acquisition of integrated capabilities for the Department of Navy and beyond. The consortium is open to all traditional and non-traditional defense companies at no membership fees. It gives the Department access a broadening industrial base while employing the innovative acquisition approaches championed by the White House, Pentagon, and Congress.

Pentagon Gives Industry 21 Days to Submit Plans for Significantly Faster Weapons Production

BLUF: Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg told defense-industry leaders in an Aug. 5 memo that they have 21 days to submit plans for significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities.

• Years-long development cycles are not acceptable. We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.

• Feinberg asks companies to propose specific capital investments and facility expansions and to explain how they would work with the Pentagon to increase weapons production.

• Feinberg called on industry to demonstrate its willingness to put skin in the game.

• The urgent 21-day deadline was communicated to arms manufacturers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and RTX.

• Feinberg identified 16 critical programs under consideration for accelerated production or increased procurement.

Feinberg Requested Defense Industry Board Members for Briefing

BLUF: Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg requested that large firms send their board members to the Pentagon to receive briefings from department leaders

• It’s highly unusual for members of a company’s board of directors to be called into the Pentagon for an in-person meeting.

• Some board members have met with officials through the Business Operators for National Defense (BOND).

• The goal of the requested meeting was a desire to educate board members on the gravity of the threats facing the U.S. The DoW would only permit board members with security clearances to attend the session.

“These discussions centered on connecting defense industry leaders face-to-face with their government customer and addressing procurement modernization and production scaling. Our industry partners must have a clear understanding of the global strategic competition, particularly as our adversaries target aggressive production timelines. Ultimately, the warfighter and the taxpayer stand to gain when we foster a more responsive, collaborative, and mission-aligned defense industrial base.” Unnamed Defense Official

US Pacific Bases Severely Degraded, Pentagon Inspector Warns

BLUF: The DOW IG warned that US military facilities across the Pacific are in a state of decay, with problems including corrosion, holes in buildings, and the presence of mold and asbestos.

• The issues affect infrastructure essential to US preparedness and have been identified through inspections of 11 US facilities across the region.

• Pentagon officials attributed the severe degradation to factors including the age of buildings, environmental conditions, and personnel and funding shortages, and said that a detailed timeline for correcting the deficiencies will be established.

• At Kadena, which hosts about 20,000 Americans, at least 243 homes on the base had to be vacated because of spalling.

Ethos Rolls Out Readiness Engine to Train Soldiers at the Speed of Tech

BLUF: Ethos rolled out a new training software platform that takes all the skill requirements for specific military roles, compares them with real-time assessments of people across the force, and helps commanders spot and fill training gaps.

• Ethos’ training platform—already used by over 50,000 servicemembers across the Air Force, Space Force, Army, and Navy—is broken down into three main parts:

  • What’s important for each person to know based on their specific role.

  • Where each individual is against that baseline standard, whether through knowledge or skill assessments on the platform.

  • Feeds that information into the readiness engine, which allows commanders to see exactly where people are falling short, visualize the proficiency levels across entire units, and take steps to fill the gaps.

• Ethos piloted the readiness engine on the Army’s drone operations, since it’s particularly useful with the fast-moving, high-paced things, and now launching this as a general release for all of customers.

“We can’t have a static, 1990s approach to training warfighters when the threats they’re going to face on a daily basis are changing literally week over week in a pretty profound way. The readiness engine is a response to what we feel is an emerging and very important problem in the age of AI and warfare.

Instead of just thinking about completion of training or meeting compliance requirements, it’s how do we maximize the chance of success on whatever we’re asking somebody to do and ensure that they’re as prepared as possible.” Andrew Powell, Ethos CEO

Ethos helps customers like the DOW and the NFL modernize their training and education programs. Our AI quantifies skills and competencies critical to an organization, assesses team proficiency, and addresses knowledge gaps before they become a problem.

Pentagon’s S&T Boss Touts Early Benefits of Re-Org, Including Virtuous Cycles of Collaboration

BLUF: Joseph Jewell, DASW(S&T) discussed how DoW overhauled the sprawling defense innovation ecosystem to unify operational authorities and align modernization.

• DoD is the largest funded of federal R&D.

• In January DoW unveiled plans to reshape the R&D and innovation landscape to fuse offices, activities and functions under USW(R&E).

• In DASW(S&T), they look at basic research in the first levels of applied research. Then they own the verticals for hypersonics, biotech/biomanufacturing, and manufacturing technology. S&T also oversees SBIR/STTR programs.

• It also elevated and consolidated six DoD tech hubs: DIU, SCO, DARPA, CDAO, OSC, and TRMC as R&E components.

• The new R&E structure sets up virtuous cycles of collaboration.

• His team also steers and coordinates defense science and technical relations with foreign partners, including NATO and the Five Eyes alliance.

• S&T also managed policies governing FFRDCs and UARCs for long-term studies and analysis.

“We want to move fast. And so, the new structure of R&E really sets up a lot of what you might call virtuous cycles of collaboration.” - Joseph Jewell, DASW for Science and Technology

DARPA Looking to Develop Foundation of Next-Generation Hypersonic Missile Work

BLUF: The Next Generation Hypersonic Cruise Missile effort is interested in vehicle designs, emerging capabilities, and innovative test-and-evaluation technologies.

• DARPA is considering a new program to develop a hypersonic missile demonstrator that would serve as the baseline of future weapons.

• DARPA’s vision goes beyond future design concepts for an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile.

• While prior technology demonstration programs have successfully proven the fundamental viability of scramjet-powered flight to counter the evolving threat landscape, existing concepts often achieve predictable, incremental gains in isolated performance metrics, representing evolutionary improvements rather than the disruptive capabilities required for future conflicts.

• Legacy manufacturing processes often result in systems that are too expensive and complex to produce at the scale required for peer conflict.

• DARPA is requesting industry feedback on at least one of three key focus areas. Under the first, the agency is interested in advanced air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile architectures that prioritize offering greater ranges, cruise speeds or altitudes over current systems.

Related: DARPA developing hypersonic cruise missile to evade enemy air defenses and DARPA seeks ‘unconstrained, radical’ concepts for next-gen hypersonic cruise missile

The Pentagon Wants 20 Prize Fighters, Not 200 Midgets

Nathan Mintz

BLUF: Defense is following the familiar pattern of an investment heat cycle.

• A handful of institutions lead the market, initially making the high-risk bets and attracting the rest of the pack.

• As the table gets crowded, they pull back from the riskiest early-stage wagers and move toward the numbered bets. Eventually, many cash out and move on to the next hot table.

• Meanwhile, PE and public-market investors arrive later with much larger checks, concentrating on the safer parts of the table—the field and pass line—where returns may be lower, but the odds are considerably more dependable.

• There is universal consensus that six defense primes with 80%+ of the major acquisition programs is too few and that number has to grow. DoW has also made the command intent pretty clear: they don’t ultimately need 200 midgets—they need 20 prize fighters.

• If the destination is roughly 20 scaled competitors, there may only be room for another five to ten prize fighters to emerge from the hundreds of companies currently fighting their way up from the bottom.

• Eventually the distinction between a “venture-backed defense startup” and a “PE-backed defense platform” may matter a lot less to DoW than whether the company can reliably deliver thousands of systems on schedule.

• DoW simply cannot wait another 12–24 months for industry to sort itself out and grow into the demand. If you aren’t in production already, it’s probably too late.

• The government may want hundreds of companies competing to discover the best technology, but it does not want to integrate, train, sustain and operate hundreds of bespoke systems at scale.

• Once winners emerge from operational testing, procurement naturally begins concentrating around the handful of platforms that can actually be fielded, integrated and supported.

• This gets to the fundamental lesson of the reindustrialization wave: the factory is the product.

Other Defense Tech News:

• RFI: Advanced Metals Manufacturing Solutions to Strengthen the DIB

• New DOD Innovation Hub will Confront Unacceptable Vulnerabilities in Production of Military Fabrics

Lockheed Martin Launches Modular Missile Tech With Storefront

BLUF: Lockheed Martin announced the launch of Strigo, a new line of modular missile and sensor hardware, along with a dedicated product center designed to get weapons into the field faster. The line covers radio-frequency sensors, missile datalinks and missile seeker technologies, all built on a common baseline architecture.

• The shared architecture allows Strigo hardware to be reconfigured for different missions, including air defense, missile defense and air-to-surface strike.

• Lockheed calls the Strigo Product Center a storefront for ready-now and near-ready hardware that it said can be adapted to customer needs.

• The modular approach also lowers life cycle costs. Lockheed said it has made a $250M internal investment in the product center to date.

• The center can move a concept from sketch to tested solution in months rather than years, allowing it to have parts on the shelf before the military even asks for them.

• Technologies developed through the Strigo family played a role in developing the Increment 2 seeker package for the Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM).

“The center allows us test and deploy new solutions at unprecedented speed. That’s how we turn ‘what if’ into ‘what’s next’ faster than ever before.” - Stacy Kubicek, Lockheed Martin Sensors and Global Sustainment, VP and GM

Related: US: Lockheed Plans to Develop Modular Sensors for Missile Defense

Boeing’s Low-Cost Radar Seeker for Precision Weapons Aces Tests

BLUF: Boeing recently finished another round of tests for its Ultra Low-Cost Seeker (ULCS), as it works to develop a cheaper radar sensor for precision weapons.

• The testing campaign, conducted earlier this summer, examined whether the seeker could find and follow targets while handling the tough conditions it would face in real use.

• The ULCS successfully detected and tracked targets during aircraft and rocket-based tests earlier this summer.

• Boeing is developing ULCS for potential use across its integrated air and missile defense, direct-attack, and cruise missile programs. The technology could help make precision guidance more affordable across a wider range of weapons.

• ULCS is built from commercial parts that Boeing has adapted for military use. Its modular design means the same sensor can be adjusted for different weapon programs.

“We are developing ULCS with the goal of sharing a common sensor architecture across several of our programs. It is modular, producible and built with Weapons Open Systems Architecture to speed integration and future changes.” - Bob Ciesla, Boeing VP Precision Engagement Systems

Related: Boeing, Northrop Unveil Low-Cost Intercept Tech and Boeing Unveils Cheap Radar Seeker Built From Off-the-Shelf Parts and Boeing’s Innovative seeker concept passes rapid testing

Northrop Grumman Introduces Raid Hunter for Next-Generation Gun-Based Air Defense System

BLUF: Northrop Grumman introduced Raid Hunter, its new 50mm Gun-Based Air Defense (GBAD) system, a next-generation capability designed to strengthen short-range, layered air defense against increasingly complex aerial threats.

• Raid Hunter’s guided 50mm ammunition combined with a high-rate-of-fire Chain Gun delivers lethal, cost-considerate engagement with deep magazines and fast reloads, tackling the economic challenge of massed swarming threats.

• Raid Hunter is built to deploy with speed and flexibility through a modular design for rapid transportation on the C-130, with future vehicle-mounted and container-based variants planned.

“Raid Hunter addresses a critical short-range defense gap by delivering rapid, high-capacity protection against complex, mass aerial threats like cruise missiles and drone swarms.” - Kenn Todorov, Northrop Grumman, VP and GM, C2 and Weapons Integration

Hanwha Defense USA Seeks to Acquire Austal USA in $1.2B Potential Deal

BLUF: Hanwha Defense USA, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace, has made a preliminary, non-binding offer to purchase Austal USA.

• Austal USA’s parent company, the Australian-based Austal, said in financial guidance released today that “The Austal Board and its advisers have carefully assessed the Proposal and determined that it merits further evaluation.

• In April 2024, Hanwha put forth a takeover bid for the entirety of Austal, but the Australian company batted down the offer, citing concerns that regulatory approvals from the US and Australia would not come through.

• Hanwha’s Philly Shipyard builds the National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV) currently used as a training ship at state maritime academies, and will build a new missile range instrumentation vessel based on the NSMV design to support the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile shield system.

“Hanwha has made it a priority to significantly contribute to revitalizing American shipbuilding and is exploring a range of options to expand our footprint in the United States.” James Hewitt, Hanwha Spokesperson

Related: Hanwha Offers to Buy Builder of Navy Ships

Our Take: See the Navy section for White House direction that may impact this deal.

AEVEX to Acquire BlackSea Technologies for Up to $650M

BLUF: AEVEX is acquiring naval technology firm BlackSea Technologies for up to $650M, in an attempt to bolster its presence in the USV and UUV space.

• BlackSea builds the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC), a 16-foot small unmanned autonomous vessel that the Navy is experimenting with out of Naval Base Coronado.

• The Navy’s USV Squadron 3, launched in 2024, operates the system.

• AEVEX builds a series of autonomous systems, including an USV dubbed Mako that is designed for ISR missions, as well as kinetic operations

“BlackSea brings exceptional and strategically aligned maritime capability, but just as importantly, it brings a culture of mission focus and ingenuity that reflect the very roots of AEVEX.” - Brian Raduenz, AEVEX, Founder and Executive Chairman

Saronic Expands to Mississippi, Selects Port of Gulfport for Marauder On-Water Testing

BLUF: Saronic announced it has expanded its operations to Gulfport, MS, establishing an initial site for on-water testing of the company’s MUSV, Marauder, at the Port of Gulfport.

• As production of Saronic’s Marauder platform continues to scale, the site will support testing and commissioning of the company’s 180 ft. autonomous ships as they move from production to final delivery.

• The Saronic facility at the Port of Gulfport spans more than 30,000 square feet and includes dedicated port access, office space, and warehouse space that can support Saronic’s growing operations.

• Saronic’s local team includes Mission Operations and Commissioning specialists, who are responsible for taking each Marauder through final end-of-line tests and on-water trials.

• Saronic’s first Marauder, which was designed and launched in less than a year, arrived at Gulfport in mid-July and is already undergoing testing at the site.

“Gulfport has developed an incredible ecosystem of partners across industry, academia, and government to advance the future of maritime systems.” - Dino Mavrookas, Saronic, Co-Founder and CEO

“Thanks to innovators like Saronic, unmanned technology is advancing faster, ships are built more efficiently, and our warfighters are better equipped for the challenges ahead.” - Roger Wicker, SASC, Chairman

Related: Saronic Puts First Marauder MUSV Through Testing at Port of Gulfport

Boeing to Sell Three Subsidiaries to eVTOL Firm Archer

BLUF: Boeing is selling off three subsidiaries to Archer Aviation in an all-stock deal and will become a strategic partner in the electric aircraft startup

• Boeing will transfer ownership of its drone subsidiary Insitu, air traffic management company SkyGrid and electric aircraft maker Wisk Aero, which was once a fierce rival of Archer.

• In exchange, Boeing will take a nearly 16.5% stake in Archer.

• The deal allows Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu to accelerate capability development and time to market while ensuring Boeing capitalizes on its investments in these technologies over the past two decades through continued development in their core businesses.

• The release says the deal also consists of a technology sharing arrangement, where Boeing will retain access to the Wisk core autonomous flight technology for its current and next-generation commercial and defense aircraft.

Our Take: This deal is very intriguing. A major defense prime converting holdings into a meaningful equity stake and enduring technology rights in a higher-growth mid-tier innovator. It allows Boeing to de-risk internal execution burdens while retaining strategic influence over autonomy IP critical to both commercial and defense platforms. Expect this structure to become a recurring model as primes increasingly partner with specialized mid-tier firms to accelerate fielding of uncrewed and advanced air systems without diluting focus on their core platforms.

Related Articles:

• Archer Acquires Three Boeing Autonomous Flight Subsidiaries

• Archer to Shape Physical AI Future of Aerospace and Defense with Acquisition of Boeing’s Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid Subsidiaries

Joby Builds Defense Muscle with $500M Buy of Resonant Sciences

BLUF: Joby Aviation is buying defense contractor Resonant Sciences in a $500M deal.

• Much of what Resonant is up to is not public. They employ around 250 people, advertises radomes and antennas, aircraft testing and stealth designs.

• Joby already has a more than 700,000 square-foot footprint in Ohio. Resonant is doubling its footprint. Combined, that will give us roughly 1,000,000 square-feet of space in Dayton.

• This gives Joby the ability to do projects that Resonant couldn't do alone and Joby couldn't do alone, but together they can accomplish.

Other Defense Industry News:

• Riven Emerges from Stealth

• Neros Plans Production Scale and New Products After $250M Raise

Congrats to our friend Artem Sherbinin on his new role as Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Applied Technologies. Big things to come!

The Pentagon Wants to Fix Defense Contracting for Small Business. Here’s What Would Actually Work

Frank Pound

BLUF: On 31 July, DoW issued an open call to the Defense Industrial Base: tell us how to fix contract accounting. Specifically, they want “pragmatic ways to streamline data and audit requirements” for business systems and align them with GAAP. Here are some thoughts from a small cybersecurity firm. Formal Letter

• The Problem Isn’t Our Accounting. It’s Your Systems.

  • Small commercial firms already run GAAP-compliant books. We track costs by project. We produce standard invoices. We satisfy commercial auditors. Our accounting is fine.

  • The barrier to defense work isn’t how we account for money — it’s what happens when we try to get paid.

  • Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) was designed for companies with entire contracts departments, dedicated WAWF administrators, and infrastructure to manage CLINs, ACRNs, and CAC-authenticated document routing.

  • A 10-person shop has no business navigating that system. And many of us don’t. We just choose not to pursue defense work.

• Here’s What Would Actually Move the Needle

  • The CASB just eliminated four Cost Accounting Standards that duplicated GAAP. That’s real progress. But if the Department wants to extend that logic, it should look at the business systems too — starting with invoicing.

  • Create a simplified, web-form-based invoicing portal for contractors below $10M in annual covered contract value.

    • Import contractor identity from SAM.gov.

    • Accept GAAP-standard commercial invoice data as the input.

• Don’t Just Put a New Homepage on WAWF

  • The Pentagon’s digital modernization efforts have a pattern: take a broken legacy system, wrap a new UI around it, hold a press conference, and call it transformation with the new ‘Digital Service’.

  • The backend stays the same. The workflows stay the same. The pain stays the same. The only thing that changes is the screenshot and index.html in the press release.

  • Build the new system from the ground up around what small businesses actually submit: a commercial invoice. Everything else should be the government’s problem to generate on the backend.

Our Take: This is a powerful recommendation that we hope is heard from the key stakeholders that make these decisions.

Related Article: War Department Releases Open Letter to Defense Industry Stakeholders

Contractor Alleges Army Inappropriately Used AI to Make $450M Contract Award

BLUF: Trax International Corporation is asking the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to direct the Army to reevaluate bids for mission support services at White Sands Missile Range — in part because the department allegedly misused AI to determine the contract award.

• The Army used AI that hallucinated multiple times, creating the false impression that Trax’s bid was weaker than rival Southwest Range Services’ successful bid of roughly $450M.

• The filing comes after the Government Accountability Office denied Trax’s bid protest in May.

• the lawsuit claims that records the Army provided to GAO did not explain whether assigned strengths for the Southwest Range Services bid came from a human at the Source Selection Evaluation Board or an AI tool.

• The Army conceded that one of the weaknesses it identified with Trax’s bid is not supported by the record.

• Trax is not the first contractor to publicly allege an agency has wrongfully used AI to evaluate contract bids.

Our Take: After reading the GAO decision in detail, we assess that the AI error (which seems to have been based on a single word that was heightened to a weakness) was probably not going to make the difference in this source selection. The bigger issue is the tenuousness of the strengths that were assigned (related to staff continuity, PM hours, processes and knowledge management). Source selections are human affairs, and different groups have different impressions, which is why strengths for some small point in a proposal is very common. However, this is where it falls to senior people in the chain to assess whether these small strengths were worth $29M. We don’t see that being adequately justified given all the factors being the same. The challenge of doing source selections is why evaluators need to move to relying less on proposals and more on oral presentations (where probing questions can be asked and follow-up questions posed) and demonstrations that rely less on flowery words.

Related Article: Did AI blow a $450M Army contract decision? Company says yes

A Startup’s Guide to Working with Large Corporations

Maggie Gray and Pat O’Reilly

BLUF: Large corporations and early-stage startups need each other. While many in the startup and defense tech ecosystem love to criticize traditional defense primes and other large corporations (often for good reason), ultimately corporations serve a crucial role for American national security.

• Large primes manage massive, multi-billion dollar projects developing exquisite, cutting-edge, mission critical platforms with little room for failure.

• Today, startups simply do not have the engineering teams, clearances, and manufacturing capacity to build systems like nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and supersonic strike fighters.

• Likewise, large commercial corporations have the scale and capacity to produce the high volumes of products and infrastructure essential to modern society while meeting stringent safety and reliability standards that are often beyond the capabilities of a startup.

• Partnering with primes and commercial corporations as subcontractors, vendors, or suppliers can provide startups an important bridge in the early years.

• These relationships can create the order volumes needed to scale production, reduce unit costs, and help startups cross the proverbial “valley of death” on the path to mass production.

• It is critical for startups to understand how defense primes and other large corporations make purchasing and partnership decisions as they craft their Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies and efficiently allocate a startup’s limited resources.

• Our experience indicates there are three cases when a corporation would be driven to adopt a startup’s new technology:

1. It solves a serious problem causing a large loss of revenue (ex: one of our portfolio companies is working with a large corporation to help solve quality assurance problems that can cost the customer millions of dollars each year in product recalls, fines, etc.)

2. It significantly reduces operations expenses, or Cost of Goods Sold, on the order of 10X (ex: Apex Space builds satellite buses an order of magnitude cheaper and faster than its legacy competitors, and as such has won contracts with a number of defense primes)

3. Their largest customers, or competitors, force them to adopt the technology (ex: many U.S. military programs are now requiring contractors to translate millions of lines of legacy code into memory safe coding languages, which has driven some defense primes to adopt AI code translation tools like Code Metal)

• Regardless of the industry, successful startup engagements with large corporations typically follow a pattern of eight sequential steps:

  1. Identify and Engage the Target Customer

  2. Introduce the Technology and Demonstrate its Capabilities

  3. Engage the Business Unit and Secure Agreement for a Pilot

  4. Plan and Execute the Pilot

  5. Validate Pilot Results, Support Building the Business Case, and Secure Budget Approval

  6. Negotiate and Finalize the Purchase Order or Contract

  7. Manufacture and Prepare the Product for Delivery

  8. Deliver the Product and Receive Payment

Our Take: We recommend all startups and those that advise them read this entire article. While we have historically been skeptical that startups can operate effectively with large primes or corporations for long, there does seem to be a shift where these entities are recognizing that their size and internal processes are not optimized for innovation and are valuing the solutions these smaller partners are bringing. We hope to see this become more the norm and to help the government craft strategies that incentivize this type of partnering.

Army Opens Test Ranges to Private Industry to Help Break Munitions Bottleneck

BLUF: Army is expanding access to its test ranges and proving grounds in an effort to get new munitions, drones, and other types of weapons to the battlefield more quickly.

• Test ranges allow companies to prove their weapons work in battlefield conditions, expediting the process of supplying the military.

• Military test ranges replicate conditions weapons might encounter when used in combat, such as electronic jamming.

• The demand for test ranges has dramatically increased in recent years as the military pursued new generation weapons, including drones, lasers and fast-flying hypersonic missiles.

• To get access to military training ranges, companies must find and schedule with the specific range. Under the new initiative, Army officials will help schedule the company access across multiple ranges.

• The Army has launched a “concierge service” where companies can schedule the tests at ranges in Michigan, Utah, Arizona and Mississippi through a new website.

• The Army hopes to expand the online scheduling and concierge service to more ranges and also allow allies and foreign companies.

• Firms can also book time at a new training range in Morocco established by the AFRICOM and the Moroccan military last month.

“Within 30 days of a request, a company that is capable of getting to a range will get access to either one of our domestic ranges or one of our international ranges abroad.” Dan Driscoll, SecArmy

Related: Army Opens Test Ranges to Private Industry and Army attempting to cut tech-testing wait times down to 30 days through base access, scheduling website and Army Unveils Portal to Give Companies Test Range Access Within 30 Days

Army Fires Community Tackling Four Capability Gaps, Including Magazine Depth

BLUF: Army PAE Fires is trying to bridge four key capability gaps as it works on 62 programs.

• Propulsion and energetics. The challenge there is straightforward: high cost, complex manufacturing, limited capacity, and in some areas, constrained resources. Propulsion is foundational to almost everything we do in the missile business.

• Targeting and seeker. Future conflicts will take place in heavily contested electromagnetic environments. That requires weapons that are hardened.

• Industry. The Army needs open architecture and multiple sources.

• Munitions breadth and depth. The increasing need to have a more diverse portfolio of weapons for soldiers to choose from.

• The future consists of a mix of high-end interceptors that can take down threats like maneuverable ballistic missiles, while soldiers use lower-cost, less capable interceptors for things like non-turbo Shahed drones.

“We do not know of every threat the Army can be confronted with 10 years from now, therefore we cannot design every system as though today’s configuration is the final configuration.” - BG Robert Mikesh,, CPE for Offensive Fires

Army Shifts Autonomy Strategy to Lean More on Awesome Vendors

BLUF: After ditching its original software strategy for autonomous vehicles, the Army has decided to lean on industry to build case-specific autonomous capabilities for different mission sets.

• The initial idea to have the Army develop a software backbone for its envisioned fleet of autonomous vehicles in what was called the Army Robotic Software (ARCS) program made sense before there was robust industry investment in all of autonomy.

• The whole premise behind ARCS was a modular approach to acquire the pieces of autonomy from different vendor. Now there’s awesome vendors in the space that are doing great stuff, as they demonstrate.

• The old architecture was designed to allowed a few vendors to plug-and-play their software on top of the Army-developed backbone.

• ARCS was put to bed as the Army underwent a holistic reevaluation of its autonomy portfolio following a massive acquisition overhaul and long-festering struggles to get the autonomy piece of the puzzle working.

• Now that industry has shown more robust capability, the plan is to let contractors offer more top-down solutions, teaming together ahead of time.

• The Engineer Autonomous Breaching Capability (EABC) program aims to find unmanned systems that can quickly breach obstacles and minefields on future battlefields.

• Caterpillar, Forterra, IDV USA and Overland AI, were each awarded a prototyping contract for their autonomy software solutions, organized themselves into teams where they would find a partner to provide the UGV.

Our Take: After many years of watching the Army pursue their suboptimal home grown autonomy software, it is refreshing to see the new leadership trust industry to compete to develop and deliver solutions.

Army Now Using Polaris MRZR for UxS Program

BLUF: Months after restructuring its Unmanned Systems (UxS) autonomy program, the Army is swapping out Infantry Squad Vehicles (ISVs) for Polaris’ MRZR platforms.

• RACER is a former DARPA program that developed autonomy software stacks enabling Army and Marine Corps unmanned ground vehicles to maneuver on off-road terrain.

• CPE Mission Autonomy created an environment where multiple companies can use the same base platform, as the MRZRs to test their autonomy stacks on, so the Army can get a true head-to-head comparison of where the industry is right now.

“The important thing here is continuing what the RACER program started, which was like, ‘What’s the best you can do in off-road autonomy?’” - Michael Rose, CPE Mission Autonomy, CTO

Army Tests Six Autonomous UGVs for Frontline Resupply and Casualty Evacuation

BLUF: The Army is testing six autonomous ground vehicles designed to move supplies and casualties through dangerous frontline areas.

• The Army is moving to put autonomous ground vehicles into one of the most dangerous parts of the battlefield, selecting six companies to develop production-ready prototypes for missions that currently require soldiers to drive into exposed areas.

• The Infantry Last Tactical Mile (ILTM) initiative focuses on the stretch between rear support areas and the forward line of own troops (FLOT), where getting ammunition, equipment and supplies forward, or bringing casualties back, can expose personnel to enemy fire.

• The six selected companies are Maren-Go, Overland AI, Forterra, Hendrick’s Motorsports, American Rheinmetall and HDT.

• Each is expected to provide four prototype vehicles for Army testing.

• Army wants systems capable of beyond-line-of-sight autonomous operation.

• The vehicles are intended to conduct logistical resupply, casualty evacuation and network-extension missions, potentially allowing troops to perform critical battlefield tasks without putting additional drivers or medics directly in harm’s way.

Related: Army Awards 6 Companies Prototype Contracts for Last Tactical Mile Program

Army Exploring 50mm Cannon to Destroy Drones

BLUF: The Army is looking for companies that can provide a 50mm cannon and ammunition for counter-drone defense.

• The goal is to integrate a 50mm ammunition solution to effectively track, engage, and defeat Class 1, 2, and 3 UAS threats.

• The Army will conduct a live-fire demonstration using Northrop Grumman’s XM913 Bushmaster 50mm chain gun, with companies supplying 50mm ammunition for testing.

• Contractors are asked to provide “a detailed description of the company’s capabilities pertaining to C-UAS, proposed C-UAS system architecture, fire control/sensor integration, detailed draft test or demonstration plan, and how the platform will successfully employ the 50x228mm ammunition against the specified target set.

Army Gears Up to Engage Enemy Surveillance Satellites

BLUF: The Army's space superiority efforts are focused on countering adversary ISR satellites, as well as conducting stratospheric warfare.

• The Army is seeking new kit to directly “engage” adversary satellites from the ground, particularly if and when sensing sats are used to target US forces.

• Army would follow US national space policy that eschews the use of destructive kinetic anti-satellite attacks that would create long-lived space debris.

• The TID-SS shop is responsible for overseeing the design, development and modernization of space-enabled, missile defeat, and high-altitude architectures, as well as synchronizing combat concepts, scientific analysis and the acquisition of new technology.

“It’s not foreign for the Army to shoot a ship at sea. Why should it be any different for the army to engage a satellite in space? It’s the same construct, and it’s a matter of our core competencies to maneuver on the land to be able to deliver effects across all domains.”

“Generally, space superiority is a relative measure against the enemy. We want to have an advantage overall in both how we use space capabilities, but also how we can take away their use of space. That goal is changing the balance in our favor. So, the Army’s job is to do that from the land, and we are expanding that.” - COL Joe Mroszczyk

Army Downed More Than 1,400 Iranian Missiles and Drones in Epic Fury and 12-Day War

BLUF: During the two most recent major Middle East conflicts it has been involved in, the Army swatted down more than 1,400 Iranian missiles and drones.

• His comments also come amid concerns about the tremendous expenditure of U.S. interceptors that has exacerbated the stress on America’s magazine depth of these high-end defensive weapons.

• Over the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, they successfully engaged 125 ballistic missiles, and during Operation Epic Fury, over 1,200 ballistic, cruise and UAS threats have been neutralized.

“For the last 14 months, the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command has been in the largest air and missile defense fight in U.S. history. I cannot add anything to the emphasis on magazine depth… or for the need for cheaper and wide-ranging mix of interceptors. I mean that couldn’t be made more loud and clear from the highest levels of our government.” - LTG John Rafferty, Army Space and Missile Defense Command

Related: Army Needs Comprehensive Missile Defeat Strategy to Address Air Defense Challenges

“We need a more comprehensive missile defeat strategy that focuses on interceptors, but also equally so on non-kinetic effects, both electronic warfare and directed energy, and the type of targeting in C2 … that will enable us to use that data to make decisions to engage targets faster.” - LTG John Rafferty, Army Space and Missile Defense Command

Other Army News:

• Army to Spend $400M on Counter-Drone Lasers

• The Army Wants to Replace the Stinger Missile

• Army’s scientific ecosystem empowers new pathways from Soldier ideas to fielded solutions

• Army speeds up drone buying by asking soldiers what works

Rebuilding the U.S. Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base

BLUF: To build upon the actions ordered in Executive Order 14269 (Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance), this memorandum sets forth additional actions to further strengthen the U.S. Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base.

• Replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for CVN-81.

• The “Finland Model” shall be used for up to three ship classes, provided that the foreign supplier: builds or acquires a shipyard in the U.S. and builds all ships after the first two such ships in U.S. shipyards, hires and trains an American citizen workforce, licenses the proprietary shipbuilding techniques and technologies used at the parent foreign shipyard to the U.S. shipyards; and sources a U.S. supply chain for construction and maintenance of all ships.

• Submit a plan for a new competitive acquisition approach for surface combatants with sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti‑submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties.

• Fifth Public Navy Shipyard. Submit a plan to increase nuclear-powered submarine and aircraft carrier readiness that will include the use of private sector capabilities and the establishment of a fifth public Navy Yard.

• Component Repair Center. Establish a Component Repair Center to receive new and refurbish old components and parts as required by the submarine repair industrial base.

• Reforming NAVSEA. The objective of these reforms should be to: introduce results‑based accountability for NAVSEA leadership, determined by speed of delivery of vessels and systems; reduce bureaucracy and red tape; eliminate competing priorities among different NAVSEA components, which often result in delayed, cost-prohibitive, or overly complex vessels and systems; and prevent NAVSEA from imposing redesigns or iterative design changes upon original mature parent designs.

OMB Director Russ Vought

1. The Ford class is too costly and takes too long to build.

   1. Lead ships typically cost the most but the Fords are costlier with each one. $13B for the initial Ford, then $15B for the Kennedy & Enterprise, and $18B expected for the Miller.

   2. If we retire a Nimitz class every four years and replace them every 12 (at minimum based on projections), you have far fewer carriers. Not acceptable.

2. Our Navy shipyards are at capacity with major backlogs.

   1. A way to add capacity and competition is to entice foreign investment into new DOMESTIC shipyards by block buying with foreign companies that build the initial ships overseas and then build the rest here over time with permanent US capacity.

   2. The alternative? No additional ships from added capacity and ongoing backlog from limited competition. Time to try something different, which is the basis for the "Finland model" that began with the Coast Guard icebreakers & is now being extended to Navy ships. We need more ships!

Our Take: Reverting to steam and hydraulics is a pragmatic reset prioritizes delivery of operational carriers over costly, troubled EMALS. The Finland Model, paired with simpler surface combatants, a fifth public shipyard, a dedicated component-repair center, and NAVSEA reforms directly attacks the bureaucratic root causes of the current backlog. These measures represent the most coherent strategy available for restoring volume and readiness in a shipbuilding base that can no longer meet the Navy’s force-structure requirements under the existing pure-domestic, high-complexity paradigm. We suspect this will be met with much political and bureaucratic resistance.

Firestorm Labs builds drones aboard USS Essex without shore resupply

BLUF: Firestorm Labs produced 3D-printed drones aboard a Navy ship at sea using a containerized microfactory, aiding the Navy in its pursuit of easily built autonomous technology that can quickly boost a warship’s weapons capacity.

• Firestorm Labs manufactured more than 1,000 parts and 12 of its proprietary 3D-printable first-person view Squall drones aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex as it transited toward RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii.

• Every part xCell printed on deck is one that doesn’t need to be flown or shipped across contested waters — cutting the fuel, aircraft hours, and personnel it takes to keep a ship operational.

• Repairs that once meant days or weeks waiting on a resupply run can now happen in hours, on station.

• The service members also helped print mechanical test components that assessed the efficacy of the 3D printer used for drone production and fabricated military repair parts that crew members of the USS Essex needed.

Our Take: Having toured Firestorm Labs tents at the Creative Disruptors in the Desert event, we saw first hand the exciting opportunities of 3D printing drones at scale in remote environments. Every overseas base, starting with those in key theaters, should have an XCELL.

Related Article: Rough waters help firm demo ‘expeditionary manufacturing’ aboard warship

VADM Williams Champions Acquisition Reform and Industrial Base Mobilization to Meet Strategic Needs

BLUF: VADM Douglas Williams, PAE Strategic Systems Programs (SSP), provided insight into supercharging the Navy’s strategic weapons systems industrial base.

• Williams keyed in on two pillars of effort related to the defense industrial base: building a resilient workforce for today’s mission and enacting meaningful acquisition reform.

• We have to break the bureaucracy, we can’t let paperwork slow us down. PAE SSP’s workforce began using data-driven analysis to inform hiring plans in 2022 and has seen a return on that investment over the past four years.

• In today’s acquisition reform environment, I am measuring my contracting officers based on their speed.

• Partners across PAE SSP’s industrial base have invested in new facilities and infrastructure to support the modernization of the next generation Trident II D5 Life Extension 2 weapon system, the Navy’s nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) and the Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic program (CPS).

“Supercharging the industrial base is something that keeps me up at night. We have to develop a new missile system, and that massive industrial base for all of those commodities to be integrated down to that lowest widget, has to come into production ... those muscles have not been exercised in a long time.” VADM Douglas Williams, PAE SSP

Raytheon, CET Successfully Test New Low-Cost Hadalus UUV for Navy

BLUF: Raytheon and CET demonstrated the Hadalus low-cost, long-endurance UUV in a Navy test, proving submerged launch and autonomous mission capabilities.

• During a recent Navy exercise, the UUV completed a series of at-sea missions on a Navy undersea test range, successfully demonstrating its undersea launch capabilities while submerged.

• This marks the first time the Navy has seen this integrated capability in the water and points toward a future where a single unmanned undersea platform can perform detect, reacquire and engage functions within one mission.

• Hadalus is a 34‑foot UUV with a six‑foot cross section and more than 2,000 nautical miles of endurance. Its free‑flooded, all‑carbon‑fiber exoskeleton delivers exceptional strength and payload capacity while enabling a significantly lower‑cost architecture.

• Designed to cost roughly one‑third to one‑fifth of comparable long‑endurance UUVs, Hadalus offers a scalable path to fielding affordable undersea capabilities.

“This demonstration is an important step in a broader roadmap to deliver autonomous, end‑to‑end undersea capabilities that are far less detectable than surface platforms. By tightly coupling design, integration and at‑sea experimentation, we’ve proven we can bring new autonomous solutions to the fleet quickly and cost‑effectively.” Jen Gauthier, Raytheon VP of Naval Systems & Sustainment

Blue Water Autonomy Selected by U.S. Navy for Autonomous Open-Ocean Survey Work

BLUF: Blue Water Autonomy has been selected for a multiple-award contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) to provide high-resolution ocean floor mapping using long-endurance USVs.

• Deep open-ocean survey is among the most demanding work at sea, and its value reaches well beyond a map of the seafloor. Surveys like these characterize the operating environment itself such as the terrain, the acoustics, and the shifting conditions that shape how naval forces move and operate far from shore.

• NAVOCEANO and the wider Navy have steadily expanded their use of uncrewed systems for these missions to lower cost, reduce risk to personnel, and cover more ocean with fewer assets.

DON RCO, DIU and PAE Aviation Invest $50M to Scale Unmanned Maritime Strike Capabilities

BLUF: The Department of the Navy Rapid Capability Office (DON RCO) and PAE Aviation, in partnership with DIU, announce a $50M investment to rapidly scale their unmanned aviation portfolio.

• To maintain maritime superiority, agility in acquisition is just as critical as the technology itself.

• This effort expands existing risk reduction work led by the PAE Aviation Rapid Capability Cell (RCC) with Shield AI to advance Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike capabilities.

The Defense Sector is Under Water: Maritime Investments Reflect Growing Threats

BLUF: Three firms reached similar conclusions, on similar timelines, reflects both increased adversary challenges in this operating domain and the reality that undersea systems are poised to capture more market share.

• Lockheed Martin announced it would spend $3.5B to buy undersea specialist Ultra Maritime.

• French company Thales announced the purchase of a 36% stake in the French undersea warfare and defense tech company Exail Technologies.

• Italy’s Fincantieri announced a nearly $700M investment in four maritime drone and undersea engineering firms.

• Policy makers, military professionals and subject matter experts have long emphasized concerns about undersea challenges, but the last five years have seen a greater imperative.

• China has used surface and subsea sensors to map the bottom of the ocean in preparation for a conflict in the Indo Pacific. This large-scale project, including at least 42 research vessels over five years.

• While the naval sector has not been as acquisitive as other market segments, these investments join a short list of financial plays that focus on established capabilities and market positions.

Navy Receives First New Dry Dock Afloat in 40 Years

BLUF: The Navy’s first Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium built in more than four decades successfully hit the water in late July.

• Austal USA launched Auxiliary Floating Dry Dock Medium 15 — a maritime platform designed to lift ships from the water for maintenance — marking the largest vessel launch in the company’s 26-year history and the largest vessel ever.

• The platform is 12,000 tons, 694 feet long and boasts a deck of 90,800 square feet.

• The vessel, deemed a “Rennie”-type dry dock for its wing walls and pontoons providing buoyancy for lift capacity, can lift 18,000 long tons.

• It is designed to accommodate Navy destroyers and cruisers.

Hunting Submarines, Underwater Drones with Two Paired Sonars Showcased by Ultra Maritime

BLUF: Ultra Maritime showed off a new underwater surveillance system at the Navy’s 2026 Lanternfish exercise. The demonstration highlighted how the company’s Sea Spear passive sonar and SSQ-125B active sonobuoy can work together to find UUVs.

• The demonstration focused on the use of autonomous systems for counter-UUV and anti-submarine missions.

• Sea Spear continuously listened for underwater activity without sending out signals, while the SSQ-125B used active sonar to help locate targets.

• Sea Spear provides the passive sensing element of the architecture. It is designed to remain deployed and monitor underwater areas for acoustic signatures associated with potential targets.

• The SSQ-125B brings active sensing to the sys. Its sonar can help pinpoint where an underwater object is once the passive sensors detect activity.

• Pairing the two systems gives operators access to different forms of acoustic information. Passive sensing can support persistent monitoring, while active sonar can provide more information needed to localize a target.

Other Navy News:

• Accelerating the Mission as DON Streamlines Cloud Access for the Warfighter

• What Is a Naval Shipyard Really Worth? The Strategic Logic Behind Hanwha’s $1.2 Billion Austal USA Offer

• Navy Doomsday Plane Fleet To Almost Double In Size With New E-130Js

• Submarine Warfare Capabilities Advance with $43M in New Contracts

Marine Corps to Get Production-ready Microwave Drone Swarm Killer

BLUF: The Marine Corps inked an $11 million contract with EW company Epirus for a vehicle-mounted weapon that can take down dozens of drones in a single zap.

• The contract, awarded through the ONR, will result in the delivery early next year of a High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability (HAVOC) system that can autonomously identify drone targets to be dropped from the sky with an electromagnetic pulse.

• The award follows prototype testing of the similar Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm (ExDECS) weapon prototype that Epirus delivered to the Corps for testing last year under a $5.5M contract.

• HAVOC will have 3X the power, improved ruggedness and range and autonomous capabilities intended to simplify decision-making for human operators.

“We’ve tripled the power density nearly in this system. So think of it, from a laser point of view that a lot of people are familiar with, like going from a 50-kilowatt to 150-kilowatt type laser in the same size package. So that directly kind of contributes to lethality, range, these types of things. We’ve also very much increased the reliability of the system and its suitability for various types of weather, types of different locations, dust, and all of that, where the Marines are dragging this thing around.” Andy Lowery, Epirus CEO

Related: Epirus Scores $11M Contract with USMC and Marine Corps Awards Epirus $11M Contract for HAVOC Program

HII’s Watcher USV Completes US Marine Corps Test Program

BLUF: HII completed a DIU prototype program for the Watcher sUSV, demonstrating the platform’s autonomous capabilities and positioning it for potential production.

• The Watcher is based on HII’s ROMULUS-25 unmanned surface vessel and was developed in partnership with MetalCraft Marine under DIU’s Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) initiative.

• HII delivered two autonomous vessels in December 2025 for testing focused on smaller-form-factor autonomous surface vessels for the US Marine Corps.

• Watcher demonstrated its suitability for sUSV interceptor missions, including autonomously transiting hundreds of miles through contested waters, loitering in an assigned operating area while monitoring for surface threats, and sprinting to intercept a noncooperative maneuvering vessel.

• The two ROMULUS-25 vessels completed a series of at-sea assessments covering autonomous mission behaviors, seakeeping, performance and operations in degraded environments. The vessels also participated in contractor demonstrations and government-led autonomy assessments.

• The Watcher uses HII’s Odyssey Autonomous Control System (ACS), a modular open systems architecture designed to support autonomous navigation, mission planning, collaborative behaviors and multi-domain operations.

• The system also enables AI-enabled contact recognition and identification, as well as edge-based decision-making.

Related: HII Watcher Autonomous USV Passes Critical DIU Performance Tests and HII/MetalCraft Marine Autonomous ROMULUS USV with HII Autonomy Successfully Passed a Critical DoW Test

Existing Airpower Theory Still Explains Modern Warfare

Grant Georgulis

BLUF: Recent articles have contended that persistent adversary effects, proliferating low-altitude threats, and emerging technologies expose deficiencies in enduring concepts such as air superiority and justify new frameworks, including the “air littoral.” The evidence offered, however actually confirms a recurring feature of warfare.

• That feature is that technologies and methods change continuously, while the enduring principles governing the force employment remain remarkably durable.

• The disagreement begins with the framework used to evaluate operations. Joint doctrine distinguishes among the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war because each addresses a different dimension of military action.

• Success, or failure, at one level does not determine success at another.

• They argue that because Iran retains the ability to threaten maritime commerce and generate strategic effects, the operational success of recent air operations should be discounted.

• Opening Iran’s skies demonstrated the ability to suppress integrated air defenses, penetrate contested airspace, strike assigned targets, and establish the freedom of action necessary to accomplish assigned military objectives.

• Those are operational outcomes. Whether those outcomes ultimately compel Tehran to alter its political behavior is a strategic question informed by diplomacy, economic pressure, escalation, and military force operating together.

• Evaluating one by the standard of the other conflates distinct levels of war.

• The same principle exposes the weakness of the proposed “air littoral.”

• Cruise missiles and small attack drones unquestionably present serious operational challenges, but those challenges do not arise because they inhabit a newly discovered domain.

• They arise because modern air defenses must detect, track, and defeat a diverse threat set across a wider range of altitudes, speeds, signatures, and flight profiles.

• Existing joint doctrine already addresses how to meet those challenges through offensive counterair, defensive counterair, integrated air and missile defense, command and control, and air battle management.

• Military history is a record of continuous adaptation. Radar transformed air defense. Precision-guided munitions revolutionized strike warfare. Stealth altered penetration tactics.

• Today, cruise missiles, one-way attack drones, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and increasingly sophisticated sensor networks continue that same pattern of technological evolution.

• Airpower theory has evolved because thoughtful practitioners challenged assumptions, tested concepts against operational experience, and refined doctrine when evidence demanded it.

Our Take: We honestly have a hard time parsing the differences in Lt Gen Deptula and Col Georgulis arguments as both seem to be cogent and just saying that we need to adapt to the new threats and have different technological opportunities. We do like to see different factions argue so seeing the nuanced perspective between the air battle management community and the fighter community is intriguing in and of itself. We definitely understand Deptula’s point that military campaigns should be “devised around clearly defined political objectives and the integration of effects across domains” while recognizing that recent history has shown limited effectiveness in integrating economic pressure and diplomacy with military operations. The fact is adversaries are just damn resilient or obstinate.

In this way, maybe both authors are too myopic and the fact is that the pressure points we have are maybe ones we don’t understand very well. We likely still need the mix of forces to execute counterair and all the other Air Force missions but maybe we also need a whole new suite of asymmetric capabilities that are unique to each adversary and their weaknesses because the future of warfare can’t be that we bomb their country into oblivion and achieve few political objectives…as Iran is demonstrating currently.

MILDEP Manifesto

Lt Gen Luke Cropsey

BLUF: In a message to the acquisition workforce, Cropsey articulated 3 things he expects from himself and the Air Force acquirers.

• First, our mission is to set the conditions for winning by adopting an operational mindset, instilling a sense of urgency, and forging high-performing teams that deliver.

• Second, our focus is executing three priorities: accelerating data/digital/AI; integrating at scale; and building better enablers.

• Third, our outcomes must achieve capability and capacity at cost, lethality at speed, and “ilities” that deliver.

Our Take: These are great points that I hope the Air Force acquisition workforce takes to heart. Read the whole letter here.

Air Force Seeks AI Tool to Help Manage Minuteman III ICBM Sustainment

BLUF: The Air Force is searching for an artificial intelligent agent that can centralize the various data streams underpinning its aging nuclear ballistic missile fleet.

• In a request for information, the Air Force says the Minuteman III (MMIII) program manages key data across “approximately 60 disparate and disconnected systems,” from “local hard drives” to “shared networks.”

• But it has no way to centrally govern all of them, requiring considerable manhours for tasks like assessing when parts may need to be replaced.

• The Air Force must continuously keep 400 missiles ready to launch at a moment’s notice, a responsibility often described as a “no-fail” mission since failure could lead to catastrophic consequences.

• The Air Force expects that the AI tool can collate data in “near-real time” and cut down on manual compilation by a “measurable amount” that will be negotiated with a successful contractor.

Air Force Explores AI Tools to Predict Aircraft Failures, Strengthen Sustainment

BLUF: While the Air Force is increasingly turning to AI for its sustainment and maintenance needs, officials say most efforts remain in experimentation or market research as they determine where the technology can provide meaningful gains.

• One of the most popular applications for AI among portfolio executives is predictive maintenance, which is already being implemented in some programs.

• The practice involves using real-time sensor data, performance records and machine learning to forecast when a military platform will fail — allowing personnel to repair or replace parts before they ever break.

“I would say we definitely have our foot in the pool, but we need to jump in a little deeper.” - Brig Gen William Ottati, PAE for Mobility

“It is super easy to say and very difficult to do in practice.” - Col Timothy Spaulding, PAE Bombers

Our Take: The Air Force is a master of overthinking and over researching things before implementation. The key here is to pick a real problem and implement a couple different solutions to see how it can be solved. The application for improving airworthiness should be an example to follow and build on to show the way.

Report Pushes New Training Approach for Air Force on AI and Tech

BLUF: A new report on modernizing Air Force training and education suggests borrowing a method from the civilian technology industry to help Airmen and Guardians build skills in key new areas like artificial intelligence: stackable certificates.

• Also called stackable certifications, this approach breaks up long-duration coursework into smaller, bite-sized options that build skills upon each other to reach a higher level of technical expertise, with certifications along the way.

• The idea is for training to be on-demand and “just-in-time” to meet a specific need, instead of one-time and untethered from real-world applications.

• The report authors offer two approaches to integrating stackable certificates into DAF training and education:

  • Integrating stackable certificates for technical skill training to the workforce, where it would benefit career fields or missions.

  • Updating Professional Military Education curricula with stackable certificates where appropriate and feasible.

• The authors aren’t advocating for the model to entirely replace the existing structure of in-residence schools and other more traditional forms of training. Instead, they see it as a way to complement and supplement the existing system in areas where operational and job demands make those options unrealistic.

• The report highlights challenges to implementing a modernized training and education system:

  • Cultural Resistance: Traditional military promotion pathways favor conventional in-residence education, which can create a bias against virtual credentials.

  • Operational Burnout: Heavy day-to-day mission demands heavily limit the personal study time available to Airmen and Guardians.

  • Accreditation Gaps: Inconsistent certificate quality from varied providers threatens to dilute established service-learning standards.

  • Retention Deficits: Private-sector companies actively lure newly upskilled tech talent.

  • Career Penalties: Misaligned promotion boards may undervalue certifications compared to standard milestones.

  • Partner Coordination: Varied university timelines and programmatic constraints complicate cross-institutional funding and curriculum sync.

Our Take: We 100% support new approaches to training as our experience is that they haven’t been updated much in decades.

Swarm Aero Wins $10M Air Force Research Lab Contract

BLUF: Swarm Aero is building a Reaper-sized Group 5 drone, designed to be mass-manufacturable and capable of operating in a swarm using its own in-house autonomy and command-and-control (C2) software.

• That new manufacturing approach—including the materials and processes is why AFRL awarded the startup a $10M R&D contract focused on high-rate composite manufacturing for aircraft parts.

• This is pretty much what the DIU is looking for under the recently released Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) solicitation, which is designed to find a lower-cost replacement for the workhorse (and super pricey) MQ-9 Reaper drones.

  • The MMA requirements include a payload capacity of “at least” 2,800 pounds, a one-way range of 8,000 nautical miles, and a focus on payload and software modularity.

  • The DIU wants that aircraft operational by 2031.

Air Force Wants a Drone Factory in a Box for Rapid, Remote Deployments

BLUF: The Air Force wants to step up its ability to field unmanned systems with deployable manufacturing equipment for turning out small drones in austere terrain.

• The RSO is asking industry to submit ideas for creating expeditionary manufacturing equipment for producing and maintaining Group 1 and 2 drones for reconnaissance, attack, and counter-drone missions.

• The RFI is another step in the Air Force’s march to become more self-sufficient at defending its air bases from drones and other aerial threats.

• Currently, the service relies primarily on the Small Unmanned Air Defense Systems.

• The Air Force “does not have a preferred production capacity” but instead is interested in “scalable” expeditionary manufacturing equipment that can be loaded into a shipping container and transported by “C-130, cargo ship, and helicopter sling-load.”

• The RSO wants to hear from companies that can adapt to multiple “vendor agnostic compatible materials” and components with minimal reconfiguration.

Air Force Establishes Branch to Develop GPS Alternatives

BLUF: The Air Force recently established an organization to field new technologies that can provide positioning, navigation and timing alternatives to GPS.

• The Assured and Alternate PNT Branch is a hybrid organization between the service’s Military Code Aviation Receivers Joint Program Office and AFRL.

• The new organization will be co-located with PNT and navigation warfare experts at AFRL “so that they can teach some of our engineers about technology, and we can identify from a JPO perspective which things are ready to get fielded into the fusion boxes that we’re going to be fielding over the next two years.”

Our Take: We have recommended for years to push tighter integration between researchers and acquirers (for military specific tech). Our approach was to pull the researchers into the program office, but this seems to take the other option of going to AFRL.

Space Command Identifies Capabilities It Needs for the Next Space War

BLUF: Space Command has ranked offensive space capabilities and systems for countering proliferated low Earth orbit constellations as its two highest priority needs for fiscal years 2029 through 2033.

• The list puts what Whiting called “integrated space fires” and “counter-pLEO” capabilities first and second.

  • Integrated Space Fires refers broadly to the ability to produce military effects against adversary space capabilities.

  • Counter pLEO is IDing ways to disrupt the function of an entire satellite network rather than attacking large numbers of spacecraft individually.

• Those are followed by joint integrated space command and control; dedicated space domain awareness for space engagements; and sustained space maneuver.

• The Integrated Priorities List is Space Command’s assessment of capability gaps based on emerging threats, planned Pentagon investments and technologies under development.

“We’re a combatant command and we fight to win wars. To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence.”

“The reason we’re highlighting counter proliferated low Earth orbit is because we see a gap right now. So, we are asking industry, we are asking research and development firms, the government labs, to please put their time, effort and attention into this problem area. I don’t want any U.S. forces to be put at risk because somebody else might have a proliferated low Earth orbit constellation that could find, fix a track and target them, for example.”

Gen Whiting

Related Articles:

• Joint force needs kinetic and non-kinetic weapons for space war

• SPACECOM Wants to Proliferate Ground Stations—and Counter Adversary Proliferation

Laser Weapons for Space? US Officials See Threat, Opportunity

BLUF: As the Pentagon and other militaries rush to deploy large satellite constellations designed to be less susceptible to kinetic attack, US military officials responsible see laser weapons as both a future threat and an opportunity.

• ASATs are impractical so searching for node vulnerabilities to take down proliferated constellations is going to be key.

• Directed-energy weapons provide new “opportunities” for counterspace operations to be executed affordably and at scale.

• The Space Force over the past couple of years has increasingly been voicing concern about Chinese and Russian development of laser ASAT systems.

• With regard to cyber weapons, it was noted that already the Navy’s component to SPACECOM integrates cyber and space operations in a way that “is very powerful.”

• Targeting communications hubs and satellite ground stations is yet another way to cheaply and efficiently disrupt or disable proliferated constellations.

Our Take: It makes sense and our adversaries are likely already targeting us but there is some fear of escalation here. If SPACECOM is seen to focus on those vulnerabilities, adversaries may also double down and it’s unclear who has more risk.

Space: The Next Frontier for Maneuver Warfare

BLUF: The Space Warfighting framework formally declares a shift in U.S. policy toward treating space as a complex and contested warfighting domain.

• Gen Whiting has directly stated that a satellite locked into a predictable orbit is not a strategic asset; it is a target.

• His call for a formal maneuver warfare strategy, which Space Command is developing under a wargaming program known as the Apollo Maneuvers, is a generational shift in how DoW intends to operate in space.

• This cogent argument is supported by accelerating advances in technology and logistics that will make orbital maneuver possible.

• However, the current discussion tends to underemphasize what is arguably the most operationally consequential challenge: space-generated data is simply not useful without a sound communications infrastructure connecting maneuvering spacecraft to each other and military commanders tasked with decision-making.

• Operationally, maneuver warfare requires real-time situational awareness, low-latency command and control and near-real time redirection of information flows as conditions change.

• New advanced commercial satellites can provide an assured communications backbone using space relay services that connect military or 3^rd party satellites to space-based networks, so data securely reaches commanders on the ground.

• Fundamentally, maneuverability in space is not only about propellant and on-orbit servicing. It is about the sustained, assured information flow across vast battlespace that spans every orbit and geographic theater simultaneously.

Our Take: 100%. Timely data and decision analytics will determine if space commanders can respond in a military useful way or stuck in limbo trying to understand what is happening and formulating how to respond.

Space Command to Host Live-Fly Advanced Maneuver Exercise

BLUF: Space Command is preparing to host a live-fly exercise in the coming weeks to test advanced maneuver concepts that will inform its strategy for dynamic operations in orbit.

• The exercise is part of SPACECOM’s Apollo Maneuvers, a demonstration series Whiting unveiled in January aimed at refining tactics and ultimately informing future maneuver warfare doctrine.

• The effort is linked to Operation Olympic Defender—a partnership between seven countries to better integrate space operations and data sharing among allies.

• Whiting previously told reporters that SPACECOM would coordinate Apollo Maneuvers events to coincide with on-orbit logistics and refueling demonstrations the Space Force plans to run this year and next.

Space Kinetic Awarded $50M for Space Maneuverability

BLUF: Space Kinetic announced a $50M OTA award from the Space Force to develop Whirlwind—its space maneuverability and deployment system.

• Whirlwind flings small, ruggedized microsatellites from a host spacecraft at high velocities—without firing a thruster.

• The microsatellites carry their own propulsion and comms, but Whirlwind provides the majority of the initial Delta-V electromechanically, sidestepping the rocket equation.

• Bringing drone economics to orbit means payloads need to be cheap, responsive, and attritable.

• By decoupling the payload from the space vehicle, Space Kinetic aims to shift the burden of maneuver from the payloads to the host—minimizing mass, cost, and complexity.

Space Force Orders Two More Impulse Space Vehicles for Maneuvering Demonstrations

BLUF: Space Force has added $28M to an existing contract with Impulse Space to provide two more maneuverable spacecraft for tactically responsive space missions, in an effort to give military operators faster options for responding to activity in orbit.

• The contract modification will fund Victus Salo 2 and 3, which will use Impulse’s Mira spacecraft to host government-provided payloads for missions in LEO.

• Victus Salo is part of the Space Force’s broader Tactically Responsive Space, or TacRS, effort to shorten the time needed to deploy and operate spacecraft.

Related Articles:

• Impulse Space Selected by Space Systems Command to Support Additional VICTUS SALO Missions

• Space Force Plans Two More Missions to Test Tactically Responsive Maneuvers

Firefly’s SciTec Awarded $94M Space Force Contract to Advance Ground-Based Radar Digitization Program

BLUF: SciTec, a Firefly Aerospace company, has been awarded a $93.7M FFP OT for ground-based radar digitization. This contract provides for modernization efforts to create a common architecture and design for the upgrade of ground-based radars.

Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Sharpen Space Force Training for Conflict with China

BLUF: Two Senators have introduced bipartisan legislation that would direct the Pentagon to strengthen the Space Force’s preparation for a potential conflict with China by expanding training, wargaming and simulation while requiring a new public assessment of Beijing’s commercial space sector.

• The Space Superiority Readiness Act would require DoW to expand the Space Force’s capacity to conduct wargaming, modeling and simulation of peer conflicts in space and develop training programs focused on the tactics, techniques and procedures needed for space control operations.

• The legislation also calls for an unclassified report to Congress on China’s commercial space capabilities and their potential military applications within 180 days of enactment.

• The measure comes as the Space Force increasingly emphasizes preparing guardians for combat operations in orbit rather than solely operating satellites that support military forces on Earth.

• The service has been developing its Operational Test and Training Infrastructure, or OTTI, a network of simulators, live training ranges, adversary representations and distributed environments intended to allow Guardians to train against realistic threats without relying on operational satellites.

Our Take: This is desperately needed as the training of the past has not kept pace with space operations especially not those operations that will be required in the future.

SpaceX Increasing Footprint in Missile Defense

BLUF: SpaceX is no longer simply the Pentagon’s dominant launch provider but is also becoming a central supplier of the satellite networks and communications infrastructure underpinning the military’s next-generation missile defense architecture.

• As more missile defense functions migrate into space, more of the Pentagon investment is flowing to companies whose roots are in the commercial space sector, led by SpaceX.

• The Space Force awarded SpaceX a $2.29B contract to build the initial backbone of the Space Data Network, a secure, high-capacity communications architecture in LEO to move data among military sensors, command systems and weapons.

• The service expects a fully operational prototype by the end of 2027, an aggressive schedule that favored a company with an existing satellite platform, optical communications network and high-rate production capability.

• The Space Force selected SpaceX for a separate $4.16B contract to build the initial constellation for its space-based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program.

• The satellites are intended to provide persistent tracking of aircraft and other airborne targets from orbit, shifting a mission traditionally performed by surveillance aircraft into space.

• The Space Force also placed an order worth $1.6B for 18 Falcon 9 launches under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 to deploy satellites supporting its Space-Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio through the end of 2027.

• By grouping the Space Data Network and AMTI contracts under the same national security business, the company signaled that it sees those programs as part of a common military architecture rather than separate procurements.

• Space Force officials have said they intend to field modular architectures supported by multiple suppliers. But near-term acquisition decisions emphasize mature technology, lower nonrecurring engineering costs and delivery schedules measured in months rather than years.

• The Space Force last week announced contracts totaling $615M to Rocket Lab, Systems & Technology Research and a third undisclosed company as part of a second task order under the AMTI program.

“The core focus of this second task order is diversifying our capabilities and ensuring we don’t rely on a single technical solution. The additional companies are intended to explore fundamentally different ways of accomplishing the mission while preserving long-term competition as the architecture evolves.” - Ryan Frazier, PAE Space-Based Sensing and Targeting

Our Take: This is the right approach. Field what’s available within a modular architecture and build the competition pipeline to minimize vendor lock in any one area but allow other players to mature and compete for future work - while also getting capability to the warfighter fast.

Related Article: Officials hedge SpaceX aircraft-tracking satellite bet with three smaller company contracts

Space Force Taps 5 Companies for Space Data Network Connectivity Demos

BLUF: Space Force has contracted five vendors to demonstrate that its future mega-constellation can effectively share information between systems owned by different companies.

• Each contractor will receive $12M under a set of OT agreements that will fund work for two related efforts.

• Together, the deals are intended to lay the groundwork to field optical laser communication terminals for the service’s planned Space Data Network (SDN) architecture.

• The five companies selected are Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems — all of which are part of the Space Force’s SDN industry consortium.

• The service wants to field the Space Data Network as a hybrid architecture, with both military-owned and commercial payloads built by different companies.

“The new prototyping and demonstration deals are intended to validate the Space Force’s multi-vendor approach. We have to break away from the old way of doing business, which too often locked the government into single-source vendors for decades. By investing in standardized interfaces now, we are creating a clear runway for any capable and innovative company to come in and compete. It keeps the playing field level and ensures we can constantly bring the best commercial technology to our missions.” Brig Gen Ryan Frazier, PAE SBST

Related Article: Space Force Adds 5 New Vendors to Space Data Network Project

Rocket Lab Corporation Announces Progress on Iridium Acquisition

BLUF: Rocket Lab Corporation, a global leader in launch services and space systems, announced substantial milestones in connection with its previously announced proposed acquisition of Iridium Communications.

• The waiting period under the U.S. Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, in connection with its pending acquisition of Iridium expired on August 12.

• Rocket Lab also today filed its Registration Statement on Form S-4 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which represents a substantial step in the process toward completing the proposed transaction.

• As part of its financing strategy, Rocket Lab announced today that, together with Iridium, it intends to seek certain amendments to Iridium’s existing term loan credit facility with an aggregate amount of $1.775B.

Astranis Unveils Perceptor, an SDA Product for GEO

BLUF: The company announced Perceptor, an SDA and maneuverability platform designed to operate in higher—and strategically important—orbits, including GEO.

• The announcement comes just three months after Astranis brought in a whopping $450M+ in new funding, including a $300M Series E.

• Perceptor will be built on Astranis’ MicroGEO satellite platform, which the company already uses in-orbit for communications missions however, it will carry extra hardware for its mission, including:

  • A suite of sensors to help with everything from determining the capabilities of adversary spacecraft, to providing details about anomalies on allied sats.

  • Propulsion hardware to maneuver throughout GEO more than a dozen times in one mission.

  • The ability to operate with other spacecraft as part of a constellation.

Department of War Launches the Golden Dome for America Hub To Accelerate Industry Engagement

BLUF: The Golden Dome for America office announced the official launch of the “Golden Dome for America Ecosystem Hub” (the Hub), a digital platform designed to streamline collaboration between DoW and the commercial technology sector.

• Accessible immediately at hub.goldendome.mil.

• The Hub serves as a unified entry point for traditional defense contractors, commercial tech companies, venture capitalists, academic institutions, research laboratories, and nontraditional entrepreneurs.

• Key capabilities and features of the Hub include:

  • Direct Engagement and Rapid Submissions: Traditional and nontraditional innovators can easily register, upload concepts, and submit designs directly to program decision-makers, bypassing months of administrative delays.

  • Transparent Demand Signals: The Hub provides real-time, unclassified visibility into the immediate capability gaps of the Golden Dome program, allowing the private sector to align investment and R&D with active mission requirements.

If Funding Falters, ‘There’s No Golden Dome,’ Guetlein Warns

BLUF: Work on the Golden Dome national air defense shield could come to a grinding halt in October if lawmakers do not figure out a way to continue funding for the presidential initiative, the general in charge of the massive project warned.

• Guetlein’s comments come as lawmakers are preparing for the upcoming midterm elections and grappling with just how to fund DoW in FY27.

• Part of that challenge revolves around the White House’s strategic gamble when it asked for $1.5T for in FY27 by splitting it into two pots — $1.15T trillion in the base request and an additional $350B in a reconciliation request.

• The Pentagon wants to spend some $17.5B on Golden Dome in FY27, but less than $400M of that total is found in the base budget, leaving a vast majority of the funding tied to the fate of reconciliation.

• Pentagon leaders are looking at possible avenues to reshuffle FY27 funds to keep Golden Dome work going.

“There are discussions within the department about how to go forward because we have diversified execution of a lot of these capabilities, and a lot of these capabilities are already requested by combatant commands. There are some alternatives that we can pursue. We have not made any decisions on any pathway. If Golden Dome is not able to continue to invest in those type of capabilities, then the Space Force could decide at that time to continue the investments.” Gen Guetlein

Related Articles:

• Golden Dome money starting to reach contractors, but long-term funding still unclear

• Guetlein: CR Could Mean ‘No Golden Dome…No Funding

• Budget Instability Puts Golden Dome at Risk, Guetlein Warns

• Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield At Risk Of Grinding To A Halt Due To Budget Impasse

• Will Money Run Out for Golden Dome?

Space-Based Interceptor Contractors Passed First Golden Dome Milestone

BLUF: The Golden Dome DRPM said that the 12 contenders for future space-based interceptor (SBI) development contracts have passed the first of four milestones in the Space Force’s demonstration effort.

• There are four “gates” under SSC’s unusual prized-based SBI competition.

• The arrangement requires industry competitors to self-fund prototype development and demonstrations of space-based weapons that can neutralize enemy missiles, in hopes of winning small pots of prize money along the way.

  • Gate 1 is to get the design in place and do component level testing.

  • Gate 2 is to build a capability that can go into outer space.

  • Gate 3 is to prove that that capability works in outer space.

  • Gate 4 is to prove that the capability actually works as part of the broader Golden Dome architecture

• The demonstration competition covers three flavors of SBIs for hitting adversary ballistic and hypersonic missiles, both nuclear and conventional:

  • boost-phase endo-atmospheric interceptors for hitting incoming missiles within the Earth’s atmosphere shortly after launch;

  • exo-atmospheric interceptors, to knock them down a little later after they have left the atmosphere; and,

  • mid-course interceptors, designed to strike when the adversary missiles are partially through their flight path.

ICBM Killer Passes Two Key Tests Ahead of Design Review

BLUF: Lockheed Martin’s new ICBM killer, ordered two years ago to supersede the oft-troubled GMD interceptor, hit two major milestones this week and is expected to clear the design phase later this year.

• Lockheed Martin announced that they had successfully fired its stage 2 rocket motor in a static test.

• NGI should clear the critical design review, or CDR, phase by the end of this year.

• In 2024, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin an $18B contract to design and build the Next Generation Interceptor.

Related Article: Lockheed Martin Announces Successful Static-Fire Test of Next Generation Interceptor’s Stage 2 Motor

U.S. Must Fuse Missile Warning and Defense to Defeat Future Threats

BLUF: The U.S. needs to change the way it tracks and defends against future missile threats. The need to do so comes as changes in missile technology are moving faster than the current defeat system can keep up with.

• The U.S. military has space-based early warning sensors that are integrated into its existing sensing, and has been for decades. But these warn of launches, they generally don’t track a weapon throughout its flight cycle.

• The SDA is developing a number of missile-tracking satellites as part of their tranches that they’re launching. The MDA, meanwhile, has “a long history of integrating battle management.

• Those two together are really helping Space Command take separate disparate stovepipe information and bring it together.

• The reason to make this change is that “we have to make these decisions faster, and that data flow has to be able to enable our layered defenses – whether that’s coming from a THAAD, a Patriot, or directed energy, or SM-3, or space-based interceptors in the future – it is going to be dependent on our decision speed.

“Historically, if you start from the high end here, missile defense and missile warning were operating on separate and distinct stovepipe networks. Missile warning, of course, was going to detect a launch and let people know something’s coming inbound and see a duck and cover and whatnot, and missile defenders were looking to get a little bit more fidelity in their track and be able to shoot down an incoming missile. But today we don’t really have any ballistic missiles. Everything is maneuvering. Everything is complex, and so we can’t provide warning without providing a lot more observations on these missiles.”

Lt. Gen. Rick Zellman

Army Selects Air Defense Unit to Prepare for Golden Dome Mission

BLUF: An Army unit has been picked to begin training and testing out plans for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome air defense mission.

“It’s a battalion-size formation that will be the Army’s initial contribution to [Golden Dome], but there will be elements from other echelons that’ll have to play a role in that.” Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and Joint Task Force-Gold (JTF-Gold) Commander

MDA Pursuing Mobile Radar to Detect and Track Hypersonic Missiles, Other Advanced Threats

BLUF: MDA issued a presolicitation Monday for a new highly mobile, rapidly deployable sensor system that could help the U.S. military detect and track hypersonic missiles and other advanced airborne threats.

• The Forward-Based Mode (FBM) Radar Next initiative is being spearheaded by MDA’s Mobile Land-Based Sensors Project Office, which aims to prototype the technology.

• Notably, officials want to create a system that can be quickly transitioned into mass production amid growing threats in the air domain.

• As adversarial missile capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, the need for agile, survivable, and highly precise forward-based sensors has increased.

• Current static or semi-mobile radars are vulnerable to counterattacks and lack the rapid relocation capabilities necessary for modern distributed operations.

• FBM Radar Next will close this gap by providing a system that can be quickly transported, set up, and operated in austere forward locations while maintaining interoperability with existing C2BMC networks.

• The new mobile radar must be transportable via C-17 military airlift and tactical ground vehicles, and provide high-sensitivity detection, persistent tracking and precise discrimination of advanced threats in “high-clutter and contested electromagnetic environments.”

• Other technical objectives and requirements include flexible aperture configuration and open systems architecture, as well as physical, thermal and electromagnetic signatures that are engineered to enhance survivability.

Related Article: Hunt For New Mobile Missile Defense Radar Reinforced by Lessons from Iran War

U.S. Not Prepared to Handle Drone Attack from Inside Homeland: Deputy NORAD Commander

BLUF: The deputy commander of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was asked if he could defend against an attack by a swarm of drones in the homeland. His reply was blunt and chilling: “No.”

• Gen Jarrard’s statements were a sharp admission by a U.S. military leader of a number of interconnected gaps, including the lack of domain awareness over the homeland.

• He was also raising other concerns we have often highlighted, like having the right systems in place to take drones down once they are detected and the proper authority to use them when needed.

• In particular, near-field attacks like Operation Spiderweb pose a huge threat and one that would be hard to stop once it began.

• Compared to a combat theater, there are fewer defenses and far less surveillance, let alone similar alert levels, at sensitive installations all over the U.S.

“We don’t have the sensors, and depending on where that swarm is going to attack, it depends on whether we have any sensors at all, and also on whether we’ve got any effectors to go after that problem. So, we are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that, and obviously we’ve seen it used. We’re seeing it used on a daily basis around the world, and we’ve got to figure out how to mitigate that threat, but we’re not there yet.” Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard

U.S. Expands Missile Production as Army Seeks More Depth in its Arsenal

BLUF: The Pentagon is pressing defense contractors to increase production of missile interceptors as recent conflicts expose a longstanding weakness in air and missile defense: inventories of the most capable weapons can be depleted faster than industry can replace them.

• Army leaders say increasing production is only part of the answer.

• Last week, the department announced multibillion-dollar agreements to increase output of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and components.

• Those actions follow a $1B Pentagon investment in L3Harris Technologies intended in part to expand solid rocket motor capacity.

• The production push addresses the immediate problem of replenishing inventories.

• But military planners have long argued that a force built around sophisticated interceptors such as PAC-3 MSE and THAAD can face an unfavorable cost and inventory equation if those weapons are used against every type of threat.

• THAAD, for example, provides a high-altitude layer of ballistic-missile defense that can’t simply be replaced by a cheaper short-range system.

• Patriot generally operates lower in the battlespace. Together they give commanders multiple opportunities to engage an incoming missile.

“The future of missile defense is a mix of high end and lower cost interceptors. We’re not really in the quantity business, we’re more in the consumption business” Lt. Gen. John Rafferty

Our Take: This is why we need a serious Low-Cost Interceptor program that is well funded and has high prioritization from the Department.

CENTCOM Creates First ‘Multinational’ Attack Drone Task Force After Months of War with Iran

BLUF: With the Iran war in its sixth month and unmanned systems having played a defining role in the conflict, CENTCOM said it was launching a new drone task force.

• Task Force Falcon Strike will use air, surface and sub-sea one-way attack drones.

• This will be conducted alongside regional partners, that the command said it was still in the process of “consulting and officially inviting” to the new unit.

• The announcement comes months after CENTCOM launched Task Force Scorpion Strike, a separate drone squadron known for its use of the LUCAS, which the U.S. reverse-engineered from an Iranian UAS.

How a Drone ‘Hellscape’ Might Stop a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

BLUF: To repel any future Chinese invasion, Taiwan is building fleets of flying drones and unmanned attack boats. The goal is to use them to help locate and attack Chinese forces approaching the island, relying on Taiwanese soldiers trained to move quickly before China can strike them.

• U.S. commanders who developed this strategy call it a “hellscape”: overwhelming an invading force with waves of drones, missiles and artillery, and making an amphibious assault so risky that China’s leaders are deterred from trying.

• Inspired by lessons from Ukraine and other recent war zones, Taiwan is now accelerating efforts to put that strategy into practice.

• Taiwan faces a particularly urgent threat: China, which is roughly 110 miles away, claims the self-governed island as its territory. Chinese leaders say they want to absorb Taiwan peacefully but will not rule out using force.

• Aiming to make the island a drone superpower, the government says it wants Taiwan to make 100,000 drones a month by 2030, with around half exported.

• It also wants the military to acquire over 210,000 flying and seaborne drones.

• For Taiwan, acquiring the drones may be the straightforward part.

• To master drone warfare, Taiwan must also retool its military organization, training and doctrine. It must learn to operate swarms of drones, rapidly assess and share the intelligence they provide and prevent an enemy from disabling them.

• This will require troops to be more mobile and self-sustaining.

• Taiwan also recently created a Littoral Combat Command, integrating drones, mobile missiles and artillery into a coastal shield against a Chinese invasion.

• In the first three months of 2026, Taiwan exported drones worth $115 million, exceeding its total drone exports for all of 2025.

America is Sailing Through the Taiwan Strait Less. Does It Matter?

BLUF: In December 2025, high-intensity Chinese military exercises around Taiwan featured a mock comprehensive air and naval blockade of the island. Weeks later, US naval vessels entered the Taiwan Strait to carry out the first naval transit of 2026.

• While the transit provided reassurance to some regional capitals, especially Taipei, it remains the only publicly declared transit the US Navy has initiated in the Taiwan Strait this year, and one of only three since the start of this administration.

• That marks a substantial decrease from prior years, which — at a time when Chinese military coercion has intensified — raises some serious concerns.

• In contrast, current rates project only 14 publicly reported transits for the entirety of Trump 2.0 — in what would amount to a 50 percent decline from Trump 1.0 and a 56 percent decline from the Biden administration.

• If America’s presence in one of the world’s most contested waterways is quietly fading, the strategic ramifications could be serious.

• Transits give the US Navy practical experience navigating the Strait and if there is a prolonged decline in Taiwan Strait transits, the U.S. will lose that operating experience and it could possibly embolden Beijing to pursue coercive, illegal and destabilizing military activities with greater confidence.

• The severing of undersea cables and lately the unlawful stops and inspections of Taiwanese vessels are part of Beijing’s “salami-slicing” tactics aimed at draining the vigilance of Taiwan’s government.

• Some observers posit that the dip since the start of Trump 2.0 is the result of the US Navy engaging in “silent transits,” in which the Pentagon declines to publicize passages to dampen tensions with Beijing.

Cambridge Aerospace Raises $300M at a $3.4B Valuation

BLUF: UK-based defense hotshot Cambridge Aerospace announced that it’s raised a $300M Series C at a $3.4B valuation.

• Cambridge’s central thesis is pretty simple: The team set out to build interceptors that were cheap enough (and quick enough to produce) to match a Shahed or a Geran. As we all know by now, it is stupid to waste a Patriot on a $50K drone.

• So far, the company’s building two main platforms:

  • Skyhammer: A “high subsonic interceptor” designed to take down moderate-speed threats. Skyhammer flies at 700km/h and has a range of about 30 km. This mini-missile is in production and on contract with the MoD.

  • Starhammer: A high-speed rocket-powered interceptor designed to take down more “high-speed, high-value threats” like cruise missiles. Starhammer will fly at Mach 2 with a range of about 10 km. This larger interceptor is at TRL 3-4 with flight tests planned for the back half of this year.

The Defence Startup That Should Have Succeeded

Willem Mulock Houwer

Our Take: Read the whole post as it presents an interesting scenario that all acquisition professionals need to take into account as they engage with maturing vendors.

Chinese Army Drones Target USVs in Exercises

BLUF: The People’s Liberation Army Ground Force trained last week to use armed drones against unmanned surface vessels.

• A Chinese military media post highlighted the armed KVD002 unmanned combat aerial vehicles engaging fast moving drone boats with missiles.

• The footage depicted at least 13 drones attached to the PLA’s ground force unit.

• In recent years, UCAVs have been deployed by the U.S. and Ukraine to strike small craft, fast boats and drones in the Caribbean, Black Sea and the Middle East.

• The service’s growing drone force – as well as missile launchers equipped with specialized long-range munitions – can aid Beijing’s efforts during a potential invasion or blockade of the island.

• American allies in the region have also eyed the utility of unmanned assets to asymmetrically counter Chinese naval forces.

• Tokyo views USVs as a key component of its broader unmanned defensive plans.

• In the South China Sea, the Philippine Navy is actively operating American-made and funded USVs to monitor Chinese forces operating around disputed maritime features. It is set to receive armed drones from the U.S. asymmetric capabilities program in 2027.

China’s Long March 7A Rocket Explodes 85 Seconds After Liftoff, Losing ChinaSat-4B

BLUF: A Long March 7A rocket broke apart shortly after liftoff Monday, destroying a communications satellite and ending China’s latest orbital mission. The failure occurred before the rocket could complete its initial powered flight.

• Some spaceflight observers have suggested the flight termination system may have destroyed the rocket. Such systems can end a mission when a vehicle becomes unsafe or deviates significantly from its planned trajectory.

Other International News:

• Ukraine’s Most Important Innovation in Processes, Not Tech

• Space Force and Japan successfully launch U.S. sovereign space domain awareness payload aboard QZS-7 satellite

• Raytheon secures $745m contract for US-Japan SM-3 Block IIA missiles

How Congress Is Reshaping the Administration’s FY27 Budget

BLUF: Three of the four House and Senate committees have marked up the defense spending proposal. None addressed the White House's proposal to spend $350B through reconciliation, though discussions are underway for a smaller package that could include money sought in a supplemental request for operations in Iran and other priorities.

• Even without reconciliation, all the budget proposals released by congressional defense committees so far sign off on a $1.1T discretionary budget request, which is around $242B more than the FY26 base budget and $91B more than the total FY26 enacted level.

• The administration’s efforts to quickly increase production of munitions, drones, and missile defenses, among other priorities, may have to be tempered.

• The GOP has been working on a smaller reconciliation bill that includes $60 billion for the Pentagon. If adopted, that funding would primarily support initiatives contained in the Iran war supplemental request, particularly munitions replenishment.

See our NDAA and budget posts for the latest insights and analysis.

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Start Drone Companies | Josh Giegel
Crossing the Valley

The Mission Shouldn’t Run on Luck | Bill Pessin
All Quiet on the Second Front

Learning the wrong lessons from Drone Warfare in Ukraine
Sandboxx

TechNet Augusta 2026
AFCEA • Aug 17-20 • Augusta, GA

MODSIM World
NTSA • Aug 18-19 • Alexandria, VA

Fed SuperNova
Aug 18-20 • Austin, TX

ONR sBAA Industry Day
Aug 20 • Washington DC area

SmallSat Conference
Aug 23-26 • Salt Lake City, UT

DIB Accelerator 2026
ASW(IBP) • Aug 25-27 • Philadelphia, PA

Space Warfighting Forum
NDIA • Aug 25-27 • Colorado Springs, CO

Prodacity
Rise8 • Aug 25-27 • Nashville, TN

Intelligence and National Security Summit
AFCEA • Aug 26-27 • Bethesda, MD

GOVCON Accelerator Summit
DLF • Sep 1-2 • Reston, VA

Emerging Technologies for Defense
NDIA ETI • Sep 9-10 • Washington DC

Creative Disruptors by the Lakes
CDF • Sept 18-19 • Minnesota

Air • Space • and Cyber Conference
AFA • Sep 14-16 • National Harbor, MD

Unmanned Maritime Systems Tech
SAE Media • Sep 14-16 • Arlington, VA

The biggest stories across the Department and the defense industry this week:

• JIATF-401 rolls out a Counter UAS Marketplace

• DoD focuses on factories and critical mineral strategic investments

• There are many new PAEs and new calls to reassess pending AI rule

• The Army breaks out the big guns and pursues new c-UAS solutions.

• The Navy drives software updates to stay ahead of the tech/threat curve.

• Air Force progressing fast on F-47 and exploring options for new MQ-9

• Space Force needs to avoid space version of the Hormuz situation.

• China continues improvements on J-36 and Australia buy JATM missiles

• Congress advances continuing resolutions before leaving town.

JIATF-401 Rolls Out Amazon-Style Counter-Drone Marketplace

BLUF: JIATF-401 counter drone task force is taking a page out of Amazon’s book and building Prime for the primes and startups. Today, they officially unveiled an online marketplace for companies to submit and list the latest and greatest in counter-drone tech and for government customers (both US and allied) to see what’s on offer, evaluate it, and buy it.

C-UAS Marketplace

• The marketplace was developed by NYC-based software startup Kaizen in “less than nine weeks under a $15M prototype OTA contract awarded by JIATF-401.

• It went live a week and a half ago, and we’ll continue to bring on more partner nations and a ton more vendors to the system.

• Kaizen has raised $35M from Accel, NEA, a16z’s American Dynamism practice, and others, including a $25M Series A last October.

• Taproot is Kaizen’s global library of compliance-engineered building blocks that we believe can help make any constituent service far better than it currently is—forms, marketplaces, permits, applications, reporting, payments, scheduling, and more.

• Blacksmith is an Agentic AI-assisted harness that rapidly configures those building blocks to any new mission set” that they work with the government on.

• So far, a handful of drone orders have been placed through the platform, but it’s still “largely in testing with administrators to make sure that the orders are coming through and they’re being adjudicated correctly. But even in the early stages, users are fired up about it.

• Anduril, SmartShooter, DroneShield, AeroVironment—all of these vendors that are publishing their products already to the marketplace…have given us extremely strong feedback about how simple it was to get onboarded and go through the vendor onboarding experience

"JIATF-401 remains focused on delivering the right counter-UAS capabilities to the right users at the right time. Our revolutionary marketplace, powered through our partnership with industry, creates a streamlined, trusted pathway for the Joint force, domestic law enforcement, and our international partners to rapidly discover and acquire validated technologies." MAJ Mike Hapner, C-UAS marketplace lead for JIATF-401.

Related: DoW Enhances C-UAS Marketplace to Expand Access to Validated Technologies

Our take: This is precisely the kind of commercial-style marketplace the DoW needs to scale across every major portfolio. By leveraging OTAs and commercial software to create trusted, two-sided platforms for discovery, validation, and rapid purchase, JIATF-401 is operationalizing the commercial preference in a way that lowers barriers for both primes and startups while putting capability in operators’ hands faster. PAEs should stand up similar marketplaces for UAS, EW, autonomy, munitions, and software-defined systems, paired with recurring competitions and real user feedback. Done right, these become the competitive engines that harness private capital and deliver the speed and scale the threat environment demands.

SOUTHCOM Establishes Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere

BLUF: SOUTHCOM activated Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere yesterday, a purpose-built, joint task force that will synchronize U.S. military operations with allies and partners to counter threats, strengthen regional security and respond rapidly to crises across the hemisphere.

• The task force provides unified C2 at the tactical and operational levels and integrates military capabilities with the 18 partner nations of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.

• It will increase SOUTHCOM operational effectiveness against threats that undermine regional security and impact the United States and partner nations, while also strengthening the command's ability to respond quickly to contingencies and humanitarian crises throughout the region.

"JTF-WHEM strengthens our ability to work alongside trusted allies and partners, synchronize military capabilities and apply sustained pressure against the networks that threaten our collective security. Together, we are increasing security across the hemisphere and protecting our homeland." GEN Francis Donovan, SOUTHCOM Commander

Defense Tech Investors Thought the War in Iran Could Make Them Millionaires. Instead, They Faced a Wall Street Bloodbath

BLUF: Despite continued conflict and historic levels of defense spending requested by the Pentagon, investors betting on a defense windfall have watched many top contractors lose value.

• Trading volumes in major defense contractors surged in the conflict’s opening days—rising for some as much as 140% above their average level since 2025, but the gains didn’t last.

• Northrop Grumman is now down over 30%, L3Harris has fallen over 20%, and Lockheed Martin declined nearly 13%. RTX was at one point down 18%, but has since recovered to up 4%.

• The good news was already priced in. Investors are hunting for the industry’s next payday are waiting to see whether higher defense budgets actually translate into new contracts, faster production, and stronger earnings—or whether political and economic pressures slow long-term momentum.

• Many of the defense players are entering the second half of the year on strong footing thanks to enlarged order books.

• In the first quarter of 2026 alone, venture capital firms deployed a record $19.8B into defense tech across 262 deals.

• Companies like Anduril (whose valuation recently doubled to $61B), Shield AI ($12.5B), and Saronic ($9.25B) are among Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing defense startups.

• Yet contract dollars to the 15 highest-valued defense-tech startups tripled between FY22-25 accounted for <1% of all DoD contracting dollars

“Investor alpha is most likely gained when investments are made before wars and before legislated funding, not after a war has begun, become unpopular, or when associated plus-ups are in doubt,” Mike Derrios, GMU Baroni Center Exec Director

Our Take: This piece is more hype than analysis, but it shows the traditional primes reverting to their long-term straight-line growth trajectory after a bout of investor euphoria during the war with Iran. We’ll examine traditional versus non-traditional players in an upcoming piece; for now, defense-tech companies still capturing just 1% pose no real threat to the primes.

XQ-58 Valkyrie Drones With Built-In Landing Gear Are Now In Production

BLUF: Kratos has built the first landing gear-equipped versions of its stealthy XQ-58 Valkyrie drone, with several additional examples now in various stages of construction. The company is also still producing XQ-58s designed for rocket-assisted takeoffs via static launchers, and Valkyrie production is ramping up overall. Both types offer certain advantages in different operational scenarios.

• The rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO) and landing gear-equipped conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) versions of the Valkyrie are the two main known configurations of the design.

• The RATO type, which first flew in 2019, also lands via parachute. Kratos has also developed a special launch trolley that allows RATO Valkyries to conduct runway takeoffs, though they still land using the parachute recovery system.

• Valkyrie is a highly modular design with an open mission systems architecture intended to be readily configurable to meet customer needs.

• RATO XQ-58s can carry up to 1,200 pounds of stores in their internal centerline bay, as well as payloads weighing up to 600 pounds on a single hardpoint under each wing.

US Tech Helps USV Conduct Search Mission, Spot Target Autonomously

BLUF: Shield AI and Taiwan’s Thunder Tiger have successfully completed the first demonstration of Hivemind-enabled multi-asset autonomous maritime teaming in Taiwan. This marks a significant milestone in the evolution of AI-driven naval operations.

• The demonstration showcased how multiple unmanned maritime systems can operate collaboratively with minimal human intervention, highlighting the growing role of AIin modern defense.

• The exercise featured Shield AI’s Hivemind, an AI-powered autonomy software that enables unmanned platforms to navigate, coordinate, and execute missions without relying on continuous GPS connectivity or human control.

• During the trial, several autonomous maritime assets worked together as a coordinated team, demonstrating intelligent decision-making and real-time mission execution in a challenging operational environment.

• the demonstration is the first step in a broader collaboration with Thunder Tiger aimed at integrating Hivemind across the Taiwanese company’s portfolio of unmanned systems.

• The partnership focuses on improving autonomous capabilities for USVs and expanding coordinated operations across multiple domains in the future.

The Pentagon Can Build Killer Drones. It Needs to Move Faster

John Ferrari and Dillon Prochnick

BLUF: The Pentagon is moving too slow owing to funding, procurement, organizational, and oversight systems that are poorly suited to fielding and continuously updating the most decisive capability on the modern battlefield.

• If the U.S. neglects to develop them proactively, it risks having to develop them reactively in a crisis, with far less time to conform with our ethical standards.

• What happens to a force that has to disperse to survive when you knock out its ability to coordinate and sustain action?

• Cheap sensors and precision strike options are disrupting the American way of war.

• Sanctuaries for American forces to operate near the conflict are gone and the concentrated bases that remain are vulnerable targets.

• The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps all have distributed operations concepts that internalize the dilemma: disperse or die. Dispersed forces strain already-taxed command and sustainment networks.

• Humans make mistakes when exhausted and scared. The real questions is not whether machines will be flawless. It is whether they can perform certain functions reliably and at lower cost.

• Acquiring drones requires the flexible, multi-year funding already requested in the FY27 budget to be dispersed in a competitive process to groups of soldiers and sailors mixed with civilian engineers, materials scientists, and software engineers, stood up inside the services and command headquarters that face most sharply the operational problem.

• Autonomy needs both protected space to grow and rivalry so that losers can be culled.

• Responsible autonomous targeting should be bounded.

• Moving imperfectly will be less risky than not moving. The best way to protect civilians’ lives and prosperity is to deter conflict.

• The technology will arrive either way. The real open question is whether the United States or its adversaries decides what it does. Does the U.S. develop the systems of the future on its terms in advance where we can set appropriate guardrails and train our forces to use them or is it forced to react in a crisis?

Read John and Dillon’s full report Killer Drones: Ready or Not, Here They Come

Our Take: John and Dillon are spot on. Detractors and hand-wringers seeking to slow U.S. drone dominance threaten our military edge. Valid concerns remain for the Department and industry to resolve, yet a slow-and-steady, risk-minimizing approach simply cedes competitive advantage to our adversaries. We must invest tens of billions to rapidly field drones across air, sea, undersea, and ground from innovative American companies, then exercise and experiment with them for swift integration into OPlans.

Where the Giants of Defense Tech Get Their Engineers.

The Arena

BLUF: The Arena traced the career history of every 2026 software-engineering hire at nine of defense tech's biggest names — 908 people, from Anduril and Palantir to Saronic — to see where the talent actually comes from. It isn't the primes, and it isn't the military.

• SW Engineers hired: Anduril 258, Palantir 217, Scale AI 152, SpaceX 115, Applied Intuition 57, Shield AI 52, Saronic 34, Skydio 18, and Vannevar at 5

• The come from Commercial tech 61%, Big Tech 18%, Academia 8%, Other defense startups 6%, Legacy primes 4%, Military/Gov 2%, and Neo-prime 1%.

• They come from: Amazon 88, Microsoft 32, Meta 21, Google 17, and NG 13.

• Anduril 9.3 years and Scale AI 8.7 hire more experienced while Palantir’s forward deployed engineers drive the average down to 5.1 years experience.

• These companies rarely poach from each other - only 1.3%.

War Data Platform Integration Plans Under Scrutiny

BLUF: Concerns are mounting as new details slowly emerge about the government’s high-dollar core integration contract for the War Data Platform, formerly known as Advana, that Accenture Federal Services recently won.

• Accenture Federal Service won an $821M task order to supply core integration support to the WDP and two weeks later the DoW reported CDAO with GSA tapped them to lead the complex military and data tech integration effort for an undisclosed amount.

• One former official criticized this: The entire rationale for rebranding Advana into the War Data Platform was to shift toward real warfighter outcomes and mission impact. Selecting a traditional cost-plus consultancy, after 18 months of contrary administration guidance, with a mixed track record does not signal that shift.

• The platform is billed as an ever-maturing asset that enables DOD to provide standardized, secure data access needed to run operational AI that can adequately inform commanders’ fast-paced combat decisions, enterprisewide and across its many disparate military components.

• It powers advanced AI systems and agents by providing data and analytics products using more than 700 data sources.

• EO 14402 and the Department’s own acquisition reform guidance are explicit about moving away from open-ended, cost-plus consulting arrangements toward firm fixed price, outcome-based, mission-focused contracts that protect taxpayers and reward measurable performance.

• Instead, it defaulted to a traditional consulting model that prioritizes manual labor over efficiency and outcomes. That is not how you accelerate AI adoption — it is how you slow it down.

Pentagon appoints new Maven Smart System program director in fresh push for C2 integration

BLUF: CDAO appointed COL Molly Solsbury to serve as Maven Smart System program director. She is intended to further anchor MSS as a core operational cornerstone for C2 integration across the Department.

• DoD has been hustling for years to realize its strategic vision for CJADC2. The overarching aim is to enable a network of networks that security links all of the military’s sensors, data, weapons and decision-makers across the services and combat domains.

• Palantir’s widely-used platform Maven Smart System is emerging as a key operational asset for interoperable user interface powering the department’s foundational plans for CJADC2.

• DEPSECWAR Feinberg issued a memo in March: Transitioning MSS to a POR will provide the stable funding and resourcing necessary for deliberate, sustained development and enterprise-wide integration to give our commanders the C2 necessary to fight and win wars.

• The FY27 budget request includes >$1.5B to expand defense users’ access to Maven Smart System as part of Joint Force AI-Enabled Headquarters initiative.

The Factory Is the Product

Nadia Schadlow and Mislav Tolusic

BLUF: Congress is debating anew whether to add billions of dollars to next year’s defense budget. But just as important as how much to spend is what those additional dollars should buy.

• For decades, the answer was ships, aircraft, tanks, and other platforms.

• But an F-35 that does not have a steady supply of munitions is hardly a capability. A submarine awaiting critical spare parts cannot go out to sea and deter.

• What matters is not simply the advanced platforms, but fielding capabilities that can be sustained, replenished, and adapted in combat.

• The ability to surge, adapt, and manufacture at scale will increasingly determine military advantage.

• We are in the midst of a fundamental realization: the factory is the product.

• Our ability to achieve ADM Paparo’s vision of a hellscape of thousands of autonomous systems is highly questionable, today, that we can deliver.

• Doing so requires an industrial base capable of producing enormous numbers of inexpensive systems—capabilities—at operational speed.

• The FY26 NDAA expanded the Defense Industrial Base Fund to support investments in machine tools, castings and forgings, production modernization, and related industrial infrastructure and established the Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network (CRMN).

• If the factory is the product, the question is no longer simply what equipment the Pentagon should buy, but what manufacturing assets it should own or incentivize so that industry can produce capabilities at whatever scale future conflicts require.

• One way to broaden this approach and to draw in needed private capital is through a Capacity-as-a-Service (CaaS) model.

• If the objective is to deliver continuously improving operational capabilities rather than a single platform, a CaaS model would reward industry for providing capability over time—not just a one-time production run of hardware.

• Under CaaS, the DoW would pay contract manufacturers annual retainers to offer rapid production scaling—much like DoW pays commercial shippers to ensure adequate shipping capacity is available in case a contingency develops.

• It also changes the economics of defense production. Instead of financing short production runs, companies can invest in scalable manufacturing methods, advanced tooling, and automation that lower costs and increase production rates over time.

• Advantage will belong to the nation that can build factories as quickly as it builds weapons, continuously improve production, and translate commercial innovation into military capability. In this age of rapidly evolving warfare, factories are strategic assets.

Our Take: We fully agree. This requires deeper Department-Industry partnerships on production capacity, adaptability, resilience, and long-term strategic growth. We can no longer afford to lock in legacy systems for decades or disrupt industry and investors with highly unstable demand signals. As we note in our piece It’s Time for PMs to Own the Supply Chain, program managers, PAEs, and SAEs can serve as orchestrators for a portfolio of components.

Defense Execs Feel Good About Pentagon Spending Despite Uncertainty on FY27 Budget

BLUF: Defense primes have been attempting to soothe Wall Street’s anxieties surrounding the Pentagon’s uncertain outlook for a $1.5T budget in FY27, with executives pointing to sustained weapons demand as proof that a meaty defense budget will ultimately materialize.

• Although RTX has signed off on initial framework deals for munitions like Tomahawk and AMRAAM, those deals are not yet built into the company’s backlog and financial expectations.

• If reconciliation funding fails to materialize or is much smaller than anticipated, it could impede the Pentagon’s ability to move forward on multi-year munitions deals — which make up $47B of the reconciliation request.

• It could also impact Golden Dome, where the Pentagon requested $17.1B in reconciliation dollars with only $400M for the program included in the base budget. The Pentagon also requested billions in reconciliation dollars for other key programs, like the Navy’s Landing Ship Medium and the F-35 JSF.

• Lockheed believes the budget and regulatory environment will ultimately be influenced by a wide array of factors, including Congress, the US political landscape, macroeconomic factors and global threats.

“I know there’s lots of discussions on budget amounts and mechanics, but what I can tell you, as we engage with Congress, is there’s a bipartisan support for increased munitions and ramping in those areas, which are pretty core to our capabilities.” Chris Calio, RTX CEO

“We’re not dependent on significant supplemental or incremental funding above the base budget to drive that growth into 2027.” Kathy Warden, Northrop CEO

“I anticipate the highest defense budget in our country’s history and a supplemental budget that would fund multi-year munitions contracts.” Chris Kubasik, L3Harris CEO

New Initiatives at the DoW’s Office of Industrial Base Growth

Nadia Schadlow and Michael Dressler

USW(A&S) Office of Industrial Base Growth (IBG) has set the following goals:

• In the short term, identify companies that have left, been unable to enter, or previously not had a place in the defense ecosystem.

• In the medium term, help American companies remove Chinese suppliers from their production chains and minimize risk to the broader US DIB.

• In the long term, cultivate a self-sustaining pipeline of domestic companies capable of competing at the prime level, reducing reliance on a small number of large primes.

• IBG Initiatives

  • LYNX is a platform with a streamlined website that enables new contractors to discover DoW contract opportunities, gain visibility across the defense industrial sector, understand the requirements their companies must meet, and receive individualized support for regulatory compliance.

  • The Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network (CRMN) enables commercial manufacturers to voluntarily enter into agreements with the DoW.

  • The 1260H List, Section 805, and Section 851 to reduce US reliance on Chinese inputs by working with other DoW organizations to identify domestic suppliers to replace inputs sourced from Chinese military-affiliated companies.

• The modern US DIB has undergone drastic changes while experiencing cycles of expansion and contraction.

• The industry has seen decades of contracting demand, large government-backed mergers and acquisitions, and the offshoring of manufacturing and processing capabilities, primarily to China, as the government supported globalization.

• As a result, today the defense sector is hyper-consolidated and relatively undiversified.

Hadrian Valued at Nearly $8B After Fresh Funding as Money Pours Into Defense Tech

BLUF: Hadrian raised nearly $1.4B in new funding at a $7.9B valuation. The fresh funds will allow it to invest in its workforce and its Opus software platform.

• Hadrian builds advanced factories for defense and aerospace companies and agencies.

• Opus software is being used by the Army and Navy, and Hadrian will be announcing other defense primes soon.

“It enables us to make massive investments to scale our workforce, our software platform Opus that powers our factories, and frankly, get ahead of the massive amounts of production challenges the country has in areas like submarines, munitions, the drone industrial base. With physical AI sweeping the physical economy, which is 100 times larger than the digital economy, everyone’s going to need to rebase their software to adapt and compete in this new world.” Chris Power, Hadrian CEO

Scaling the US Defense Industrial Base to Meet Record Demand

Steve Beckey, JD Kearney, Nathan Miller, and Timothy Wickham

BLUF: The U.S. defense market is in a historic period of production ramp-up, but the industrial base is struggling to meet the demand. We conducted a comprehensive survey from over 160 companies, including OEMs and Tier 1 & sub-tier suppliers.

• As markets signal rising demand — and conflicts are likely to increase the backlog to ~$900B — companies across the industry told us they are navigating complex shifts in operational resilience, financial stability, and technology.

• Each segment of the value chain faces distinct pressures, but the overall picture is an industrial base is unprepared for the pending production ramp.

• Six key insights on the state of the defense industrial base

  1. The ramp is real, but the supply base lags behind. Suppliers see the demand signal, but many do not believe they can translate it into executable capacity quickly enough.

  2. Uncertainty is stalling investment. Demand uncertainty, both in timing and in scale, is keeping suppliers from making the necessary investments.

  3. The market is burdened by a growing “trust tax.” Suppliers are holding excess capacity in reserve and carrying buffers as insurance against sub-tier delivery risk.

  4. Workforce issues could cripple the ramp-up. The industry continues to struggle with labor challenges, including finding, training, and retaining the expertise required to scale production.

  5. Tier 2+ suppliers are often the hollow middle of the ramp. Sub-tier suppliers are a structurally exposed segment of the industrial base, with the least financial, operational, and digital room to absorb the surge.

  6. AI adoption has begun, but it is not yet a ramp solution. Early adopters are beginning to see marginal benefits, but the technology remains too unevenly deployed to offset the broader challenges.

Our Take: The good news is that vendors (at all levels) don’t think they need more than 2 years to double production and more importantly they don’t seem to need major capex to make it happen. The downside of the responses is that a skilled workforce is a top barrier which is not always an easy fix depending on the locale. One area of interest is that tooling and automation could have a major impact on the Tier 2+ suppliers and while they say they don’t need capex to double production, they could potentially use capex to treble production with more automation. The report notes that suppliers should focus on “targeted automation, AI, advanced manufacturing, process redesign, and knowledge-capture opportunities” which is a solid recommendation and an area for OSW to help. Read the full report.

Full Report: The defense ramp-up reality check

Northrop gets $3B Framework Deal to Increase Motor Production for PAC-3, THAAD

BLUF: Northrop Grumman will become a second supplier of rocket motors for the in-demand PAC-3 interceptor while also increasing motor production for THAAD missiles.

• Both agreements span a total of seven years, with the PAC-3 deal valued at $2B and the THAAD deal valued at $1B.

• Northrop’s Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia will stand up production for solid rocket motors for PAC-3, while the additional THAAD motor production will take place at its San Diego plant.

• The Northrop deal follows a similar agreement to boost THAAD and PAC-3 solid rocket motor production, signed last week by L3Harris and the Pentagon. L3Harris is currently the sole producer of SRMs for PAC-3.

Our Take: While the company announcements hedge a bit more on exact increases, A&S is expecting this agreement to quadruple the production of THAAD interceptor structural components. This includes critical parts such as mid-body shells, muzzle covers and rail car assemblies. Establishing a second source for PAC-3 SRMs is a positive development given the current demand…and could also be useful for other iterations of high-end defensive munitions.

Related Article: DOW Signs Framework Agreements with Northrop Grumman to Ramp Production of PAC-3, THAAD Components

HII Teams Up with GrayMatter and Path for Robotic Shipbuilding

BLUF: HII (formerly known as Huntington Ingalls Industries) announced that it signed agreements with GrayMatter Robotics and Path Robotics to “accelerate the development and deployment of advanced physical AI automation across U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs, including aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships, future frigates and unmanned surface vessels.” in a deal worth up to $900M.

• GrayMatter combines an autonomous intelligence layer with COTS robots to do the “last-minute,” often super-precise parts of the manufacturing process. Think sanding, grinding, coating, and inspection.

  • Their software (called SCAN&) scans a part with 3D sensors, creates a digital model, and figures out what finishing steps need to be done—then programs a robot to do them.

  • That saves operators hours on reprogramming robots every time the geometry of a ship or part changes. Their setup is very helpful for high-mix, high-variability stuff—like a shipyard.

• Path builds autonomous welding robots that can also work on a variety of parts without being reprogrammed.

  • Traditional robotic welding requires engineers to manually teach the robot the exact weld path. That works well when you’re building thousands of identical parts, but not so well when you mix it up.

  • Path has built a physical AI model it calls Obsidian that scans parts with cameras and sensors, identifies where a weld should go, and then assigns robots to do it automatically. It also tests weld quality as it works.

Our Take: Given HII currently builds at least 3 major Navy ship platforms that GAO reports are behind schedule, with delays ranging from roughly one year to nearly five years, this is a promising development that can maybe help improve the speed and predictability of our critical maritime capabilities.

AE Industrial Closes Purchase of L3Harris’s Space Propulsion, Power and Electronics Units Establishing the Business as Rocketdyne

BLUF: AE Industrial, a private investment firm, has finalized the acquisition of the space propulsion, power and electronics units from L3Harris Technologies and is launching the entity as Rocketdyne.

• The transaction re-establishes Rocketdyne as an independent company with more than 60 years of spaceflight heritage and a proven track record across civil, commercial, and national security space.

• L3Harris will retain a minority stake in the business and continue to be a strategic partner.

• AE Industrial will provide investment in Rocketdyne’s core capabilities, including:

  • upgrading the technology and manufacturing of the RL10 rocket engine

  • ramping up production of in-space propulsion thrusters

  • advancing nuclear power and energy solutions for space applications.

Our Take: L3Harris acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023 but its only divesting of the space business as part of this deal so it retains the SRM business which it has received OSW investment of a $1B convertible preferred equity to expand and modernize SRM production facilities, accelerate R&D, and increase production capacity. L3Harris is said to have retained a 40% share and by retaining the strategic partner connection is likely making out very well with this deal. It allows it to focus its IR&D and attention on the SRM business while allowing a separate entity to invest in and grow its space business.

OSC Signs $820M Loan Commitment with Performance Drone Works to Expand Domestic Drone Component Manufacturing

BLUF: The investment is intended to supply components to multiple manufacturers and platforms for a range of Group 1 and Group 2 unmanned aircraft produced by PDW and other domestic manufacturers.

Xona Clears Final Regulatory Hurdle for PNT Constellation

BLUF: Xona Space Systems has won FCC approval to broadcast its Pulsar navigation signals from a full satellite constellation, clearing the last regulatory hurdle before the company can scale deployment.

• The authorization makes Xona the only FCC-approved private navigation constellation cleared to broadcast in the L-band, putting Pulsar alongside GPS and other nation-state networks.

• Pulsar is built to augment legacy GPS including with signals up to 100x stronger than GPS, spoofing protection using a dynamic cryptographic watermark and compatibility with existing GNSS hardware.

• Xona launched Pulsar-0 in 2025 to prove the signal could work without interfering with GPS. Since then, the company says it has logged 350+ transmission passes tracked by more than a dozen commercial receivers.

• Xona’s biggest hurdle was proving to regulators it wouldn’t interfere with existing GNSS signals in the heavily protected L-band.

• The first six Pulsar satellites are slated to launch in October, with initial operations set to begin in early 2027.

Quantum-Inspired Tech Lets Engineers Test Tens of Thousands of Drone Designs at Once

BLUF: Technology, developed by quantum-accelerated simulation software company BQP, uses advanced computing methods to explore thousands of engineering designs on existing high-performance computing and GPU systems.

• Drone maker Modovolo has integrated BQP’s BQPhy simulation platform into its engineering workflow to test a much larger number of propeller designs than traditional methods allow to design its next-generation propellers.

• The goal is to shorten the process of finding designs that can improve drone flight time and payload capacity while keeping manufacturing costs low.

• Traditional computational fluid dynamics and structural analysis tools can make design optimization slow because engineers have to narrow many possible configurations into a manageable set.

• BQP says this can compress tens of thousands of simulations into a fraction of the usual time and computing resources.

Our Take: The potential here is endless, definitely some exciting possibilities ahead. One misconception that many have about quantum is that it can process things like this because its inherently faster than a traditional GPU. The reality is that quantum tackles the problem from different vantage points given its parallel-like processing which allows for truly unique outputs that traditional methods might never arrive at even with the biggest supercomputer.

High-Purity Iron Producer Addressing Rare Earth Magnet Gap

BLUF: Hertha Metals, a high-purity iron production company from Texas, uses a unique single-step process to turn any grade domestic iron ore — mixed with natural gas — into high-purity iron, which it then converts into neodymium magnets.

• China produces 90% of the world’s high-purity iron, dominating the industry.

• Chinese high-purity iron is made electrolytically, using electric currents to drive a chemical reaction.

• High-purity iron magnets are critical for defense systems because they require electric steel, which is high-purity iron combined with silicon.

• High-purity iron is included in precision-guided munitions, autonomous vehicles, electric drive systems and F-35s.

• Hertha was scheduled to break ground on a new plant that will produce high-purity iron by early 2028 and help achieve the company’s goal of delivering 300,000 to 500,000 tons of the metal per year by the end of 2030.

Our Take: Quite simply, this is huge. The ability to produce this onshore will be a dramatic relief to multiple supply chains that struggle to buy magnets from non-restricted sources.

Securing America’s Critical Data Supply Chain

Lucian Niemeyer and Sue Ghosh Sticklett

BLUF: The Supply Chain EO directing DoW to illuminate defense supply chains using complete indentured Bills of Materials tracing components, parts, equipment, software, and material through every tier of the supply chain and back to their origin is a timely and critical initiative. Yet it secures only half the battlefield.

• The EO focuses on steel, titanium, microchips, rare earth minerals, and the industrial base that transforms them into military capability.

• But every modern defense system depends upon something just as indispensable: trusted, verifiable, and fit-for-purpose data.

• Critical data now flows through the armed forces with the same strategic importance as fuel, ammunition, and replacement parts.

• However, if that information is corrupted, incomplete, biased, misleading, outdated, or stripped of context, even the most sophisticated weapon system can become extraordinarily expensive monuments to misjudgment.

• Our adversaries understand the power of corrupting information for advantage.

  • A manipulated maintenance record can ground aircraft at the wrong moment.

  • Poisoned logistics data can send critical supplies to the wrong location.

  • A fabricated intelligence report can redirect surveillance.

  • Biased training data can cause an AI-enabled system to misclassify a legitimate target, overlook a threat, or fail in the operational environment.

• By the time commanders discover the data corruption months after the exploitation, the operational consequences may already be irreversible.

• When sensitive information crosses international boundaries, resides under competing legal jurisdictions, and moves through systems operating under uneven security standards, the chain of custody can be lost.

• The new demand is Data Provenance—verifiable evidence showing where mission-critical data originated, which organizations/systems handled it, transformations it underwent, and whether its integrity and context were preserved.

• The Department and the defense industrial base should adopt commercial technologies to preserve evidence of origin, transformation, custody, and authorized use across structured and unstructured data, including video, audio, documents, sensor feeds, databases, and AI outputs.

• Certain mechanisms should include cryptographic signatures, trusted timestamps, secure metadata, content credentials, tamper-evident logs, hardware-backed attestations, robust watermarking, independent corroboration, and validation.

• These capabilities should also enforce data use restrictions and ensure that only authenticated information is ingested into AI systems, allowing trust to travel with the data wherever it moves.

OSC/EDU Loans and Deals

• OSC Signs $1.4B Conditional Loan Commitment With Sila Nanotechnologies, Inc. to Enhance American Battery Production

• OSC Signs $400 Million Conditional Loan Commitment With Sunrise Energy Metals Limited to Expand Scandium Mining Operations

• OSC Signs $150 Million Conditional Loan Commitment With Niron Magnetics, Inc. to Scale Domestic Rare Earth-Free Magnet Production

• DoW Announces an $85.5 Million Agreement With Strategic Bauxite USA to Secure the Critical Refractory Grade Bauxite Supply Chain

Other Defense Industry News

• BETA Technologies and EXIM Bank Announce Intent to Expand Financing Agreement for Up to $1B to Fuel U.S. Aerospace Manufacturing Growth

• Aurelius Raises $40M Series A for Laser Weapons

• Mariana Minerals Raises $310M Series B

• Neuraspace Raises €15.6M to Scale its SDA Service

Portfolio Executives Describe Changing Roles as Air Force Completes Acquisition Overhaul

“This is a monumental step forward, but our work is not done. Pushing these critical decisions down to the PAE level demands a heightened commitment to delivering results and holding ourselves accountable. We must continue to be bold, to learn and to adapt — ensuring we provide our warfighters with the decisive edge they need when they need it. We’ve focused on in on the decision making and matching the authority with the accountability at that point of a PAE. It gave us a chance to take a look at what level are we making those decisions and how far down can we delegate and streamline.” William Bailey, Acting Air Force SAE

“Each PAE has oversight over the entire lifecycle of all platforms in its portfolio. Rather than dividing authority across fragmented offices, they’re charged with enterprise-wide modernization, procurement and sustainment efforts while individual program managers retain responsibility for specific platforms.” Col. Timothy Spaulding, PAE for Bombers

“Instead of a program-by-program type focus, we now have a portfolio or enterprise focus. That means that I can help drive integrated propulsion acquisition strategies and outcomes across the enterprise, enhance those enterprise-wise results, ensure the vitality and protection of the propulsion industrial base and align our demand signal to optimize the use of limited funds that we have.” John Sneden, PAE for Propulsion

Air Force Delivers on Acquisition Transformation, Redesignates Executives as PAEs

While last month we reported the Air Force redesignated all the remaining PEOs to be PAEs, this latest announcement provides the updated list of PAE portfolios and executives.

Department of the Navy Establishes Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems

BLUF: SECNAV established Direct Report Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (DRPM RAS) a strategic restructuring to tightly integrate the development, requirements, and acquisition of RAS capabilities across the Department of the Navy (DON).

• Chris Miller will serve as acting DRPM RAS reporting directly to William Toti, PTDO USECNAV and concurrently serve as acting PAE RAS.

• RADM Casey Moton will replace Miller as PAE Maritime.

“We are at an inflection point in naval warfare, and the Department has been approaching robotic and autonomous systems through arcane processes that do not deliver capabilities at the speed our Sailors and Marines need.” William Toti, PTDO USECNAV

Weeks Relieve Downey as PAE Industrial Operations

VADM James Downey was relieved of his dual-hatted role as PAE Industrial Operations by RADM Todd Weeks and as NAVSEA Commander by RADM Pete Small during a joint change of command. Following the change of office and change of command, Downey is slated to retire after 40 years of distinguished and dedicated service to the U.S. Navy. Our Take: May VADM Downey have fair winds and following seas.

Can’t keep track of all the PAE and DRPM changes? No worries. You can see all the Portfolio Acquisition Executives and DRPMs on our Digital Pentagon platform.

Top Cover and Clear Metrics: How to Make the New PAE Structure Work

Tim Cooke