🔷 Drone Kingdom

In That Number

42

The defense conglomerate EDGE unveiled 42 new products at the Dubai Airshow, spanning drones, propulsion, sensors, and data management systems.

The biggest splash was the production alliance with Anduril for the Omen tail-sitter drone.

On the Radar

Drone Kingdom. General Atomics revealed that they are negotiating a massive drone deal with Saudi Arabia for up to 130 MQ-9 STOL-variants and 200 Gambit Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).

• The Merge’s Take: Will 130 MQ-9s supplant the 300+ Chinese Wing Loong IIs that Saudi Arabia owns? It also appears to be bypassing the initial CCA development phase and going straight for production-ready, export variants of loyal wingman. That said, where all these drones will be built is a big part of the deal. The nation aims to localize 50% of military spending by 2030—today they are at 25%. So a deal this size, with the right localization, could be a win-win for GA and Saudi Arabia. If they buy the CCAs, what fighter they ‘collaborate’ with is also coming into view: this week, they announced intentions to buy 60 F-15EX and 48 F-35s, and the latter has support from the current US administration.

14 to 6. The Pentagon revised its critical technology areas from 14 to 6. The new six: Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI), Biomanufacturing (BIO), Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG), Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID), Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE), and Scaled Hypersonics (SHY).

• The Merge’s Take: It’s not apples-to-apples; 14-6 does not =8. The 14 areas released in 2022 were foundational (“microelectronics”, “advanced materials”), whereas the new list has 6 missionized outcome-oriented areas. What's out: “hypersonics.” What’s in: “scaled hypersonics.” Keep an eye on contested logistics, that’s new for the list, a long-standing Achilles heel, and a market ripe for disruptive startups (and there are a few).

Golden Dome Interceptor Comms. Kymeta and iRocket announced a strategic partnership Kymeta’s new conformal multi-orbit antenna technology into iRocket’s missile interceptors. This collaboration aims to deliver "always-connected" capability for the future Golden Dome continental defense vision, enabling real-time, resilient communications and guidance updates for the interceptors.

• The Merge’s Take: Lots to unpack here. Kymeta's metamaterial antennas are a "game-changer" because they are surface-integrated antenna designs that reduce the aerodynamic drag of high-speed interceptors while maintaining robust, multi-orbit connectivity for non-negotiable, accurate guidance updates. As for iRocket, if you didn’t know, they are building a missile interceptor—now you do.

TRIVIA

What is this? Hint: the picture is from World War II.

A) a bomb encased in Styrofoam
B) a nuclear reactor encased in rubber
C) a statue encased in bricks

They Said It

“We’re going to launch in multiple waves, demonstrating what a phased use of these might look like over time. We’re going to create mass disruption [of the] stratosphere to demonstrate what it would look like if this was coming at you.” 

— Andrew Evans, Army G-2 Director of the Strategy & Transformation, on a planned experiment using 200+ high-altitude balloons for attritable intelligence gathering.

 Together with Badass Patches

Fighter-Pilot Founded. Badass Built.

Get Your Gear 

Knowledge Bombs

• Valar Atomics became the first nuclear startup to sustain a controlled fission reaction

• Ursa Major closed a $100M Series E fundraise to expand rocket motor manufacturing

• Redwire won a $44M DARPA contract to build an air-breathing VLEO satellite

• General Atomics & Saab will test an Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) MQ-9 variant in 2026

• HavocAI secured $85M in funding to scale its autonomous naval fleet technology

• Red 6 & Boeing integrated an augmented reality helmet system on the AH-64E Apache helicopter 

• Anduril won a $50M contract for ALTIUS 600 loitering munitions to support Air Force Special Operations

• Planet & Quantum Systems partnered to fuse satellite and drone data into a ‘tip & cue’ solution

• The Air Force revealed that an F-22 pilot successfully controlled an MQ-20 drone from the cockpit

• Colombia is buying 17 Gripen E/F fighter jets ($3.6B deal)

💎 Free Merch! 💎 

Don't keep us a secret!
Share the Merge = earn free swag.
It's that simple.

You currently have 0 referrals, only 3 away from receiving Stickers.

Or copy and paste this link: https://themerge.co/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER

ANSWER
C. WWII threatened Michelangelo's David, located in Florence, Italy. Because the 17-foot marble statue was too massive to be relocated, it was encased in a custom brick "hive" in 1943 to protect it from air raid bomb damage. When the brick enclosure was carefully dismantled in 1945, the statue emerged dusty but unharmed.