🔷 Combat Data Vault

In That Number

$185B

The Pentagon increased its cost estimate for the Golden Dome advanced missile defense shield to $185B.

The $10B increase is to accelerate key space-based capabilities, though estimates could eventually climb much higher….much higher.

On the Radar

$200B War Bill. The Pentagon is preparing to submit a massive $200B request to fund the war in Iran. Estimates peg the cost spent to date at $26B.

• The Merge’s Take: People are saying it will be a quick war; none of them are saying how long it will last…but $200B sounds like a 6-month budget. On the other hand, the Pentagon has also said the request will include other items to “jolt” the industrial base. This is additive to an FY27 budget request that is expected to approach $1.5T, and on the heels of a $152B boost the Pentagon received last year (that they just figured out how to spend). It all starts to sound like monopoly money, but keep an eye on the $1.5T and $200B requests and posture narratives, as they are likely to go through different processes in Congress.

How many CCAs? The Air Force is officially expanding its initial acquisition target for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) beyond the original target of 100 platforms by 2029. By the end of this year, officials expect to finalize the total inventory goal, which could eventually reach up to 2,000 autonomous wingmen.

• The Merge’s Take: The real decision is how many of what type. Increment 1 CCA prototypes (General Atomics’ YFQ-42 Dark Merlin and Anduril’s YFQ-44 Fury) may get the nod for production, but they (and all currently flying CCAs) are limited by COTS engines—business jet engines to be exact. CCA Inc 2 is expected to leverage the flurry of engine contracts currently underway, and a purpose-built engine has the cooling, propulsion, and electrical power to unlock more capability.

Combat Data Vault. Ukraine has launched a world-first cooperation framework that grants international allies access to millions of annotated combat frames from tens of thousands of drone missions to train autonomy and AI models.

• The Merge’s Take: This sounds like a super-sized version of Ukraine’s Brave1 Dataroom partnership with Palantir. Both have the same goal: to use combat data to help bridge the sim-to-real gap that plagues systems that rely on synthetic data due to limited access to real-world data. Allies get better data to train models—Ukraine gets better systems built from those models.

• The Merge’s Spicy Take: This combat data vault could level the playing field for software developers. If that happens, it could commoditize algorithms and force companies to find other ways to stay in business maintain competitive advantages.

TRIVIA

What do you get when you combine a P-3 Orion with an S-3 Viking? The resultant anti-submarine aircraft made its first flight on this day in 1979.

A) CP-140 Aurora 
B) CP-107 Argus 
C) Kawasaki P-1

They Said It

“They were not in full-rate production. So, we shipped what we had.”

— Emil Michael, Pentagon Chief Technology Officer, on the combat debut of the Shahed-inspired LUCAS drone during the beginning of Operation Epic Fury

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Knowledge Bombs

• DOT&E released its FY25 Annual Report on military weapon performance

• The US $16.5B in air defense systems for the Middle East

• GuideTech (Palladyne AI subsidiary) won a Navy contract to develop an air-launched Mach 4 350-mile missile

• AV announced a $200M acquisition of drone maker ESAero

• Doodle Labs introduced Sense EW to adapt comms for drones when jammed

• Advanced Navigation raised a $110M Series C for GPS-independent systems

• Rocket Lab won a $190M contract for Pentagon hypersonic test flights

• Kawasaki is developing 2 types of collaborative unmanned aircraft

• Cambridge Aerospace raising $200M to develop drone interceptor systems

• Anduril's Lattice integrated the K1000ULE drone into the Army's NGC2

• The US used the 5,000-lb GBU-72 penetrator in combat for the first time

• Baykar unveiled the 1,700-lb K2 kamikaze drone (1,200-mile range)

• Defense Unicorns delivered rapid software updates for the F-22 Raptor (more on this next weekend…)

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ANSWER
A) The Lockheed CP-140 Aurora first flew on March 22, 1979. It was custom-built for the Canadian Armed Forces, specifically designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and maritime surveillance. Lockheed used the fuselage and wings of its P-3C Orion and incorporated the mission systems and avionics from the smaller S-3A Viking (also built by Lockheed).