Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.
In that Number
$782 on 25,000+
The Pentagon's unmanned systems portfolio office (DRPM-UxS) spent $782M on 25,000+ systems delivered to CENTCOM this year: 1,300+ one-way attack drones, 100+ USVs and UUVs, and 24,000+ C-UAS.
Together with Firehawk
The Show!
Firehawk
America’s solid rocket motor industry consolidated from six manufacturers to two. Firehawk wants to be number three.
Mike sits down with Will Edwards, Co-Founder and CEO of Firehawk, to talk about breaking a thirty-year propulsion duopoly.
Founded in 2019, Firehawk replaced the traditional cast-and-cure process with a continuous thermoplastic platform, cutting propellant production from 60 days to 6 hours. The company just closed a $150M+ Series D to scale two major facilities in Oklahoma and Mississippi.
Check it out!
Zoom in
Exquisite platforms earn their keep by making opponents avoid the fight. But an enemy that can’t beat your best weapon can attack what makes it useful. So where does a thinking enemy go next?
Zoom in here for the case for capability and capacity spending.
They Said It
“We need an appropriate mix of high-end survivable systems and lower-cost attritable capabilities, not a fleet of nuclear-powered battleships as proposed by the President.”
— Rep. Adam Smith, in a letter announcing his bid for chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee (he’s currently the ranking member)
Saved Rounds
The Army flew its first HADES prototype, a modified Global 6500 jet
IAI is set to win a $906M Indian tanker deal to convert 6 Boeing 767 aircraft
Northwood Space raised a $375M Series C for ground stations
Pegasystems won a $419M Army IDIQ for enterprise-wide software licenses
Leonardo DRS will power and cool the Army's $464.8M E-HEL production lasers
Greece ordered 3 Embraer KC-390s for $659M, with options for 3 more
The Navy received its 1,000th ESSM Block 2, double the count from June 2025
The Army flew its VICTOR drone on a 3D-printed rotary engine burning jet fuel
Vector unveiled its Warfighter's Stack: Mace drone, HV-ESAD and Hilt controller
Advanced Acoustic Concepts won a $54M Navy deal for remote mine-hunting modules
Ukraine was approved to buy 500 PAC-3 missiles (a $2.1B deal)
Sunrise Energy Metals got a $400M OSC loan commitment for an Australian scandium mine
Green Hills Software launched MCOR, a CPU-based graphics renderer certifiable to DAL A
Airbus scrapped its Wingman drone to focus on the U760 Ravenstorm CCA
Polaris Aerospace plans a winter test of a mass-producible liquid rocket engine
The Air Force wants 1,000 more ERAM missiles within 15 months
Lockheed Martin is investing $420M to expand PAC-3 and THAAD output
Safran Power Units will supply twin turbojets for UVAD's Mach 1.6 target drone
Mach Industries took a strike drone from concept to first flight in 71 days
Joby expanded its Air Force autonomy contracts to nearly $37M
Nominal won a Navy contract to test Castelion's Blackbeard on the F/A-18
CesiumAstro raised a $730M Series D at a $4.5B+ valuation for 737 satellites
Raytheon won a DARPA Phase One contract for all-optical signal processing
The Air Force divested its 3 A-29 Super Tucanos
Jordan was approved to buy 1,500 APKWS rockets ($100M deal)
Saab flew an AI agent on a Gripen E in beyond-visual-range trials
Saronic launched its second Marauder USV, built with 8% fewer labor hours
Baykar turned the TB2 into a flying carrier for 16 Skydagger FPV drones
NASA awarded $1.B in Ka-band relay deals to Viasat, GES and Astranis
General Atomics will build glide body parts for Dark Eagle and CPS hypersonics
The Army merged its aerial and ground ISR offices into PM ATSR
Eurofighter is eyeing 200+ more sales
Saildrone partnered with Umoe Mandal to build its Surveyor USVs in Norway
LeoLabs secured a $150M OSC loan to add dozens of space-tracking radars
6K got a $250M OSC loan commitment to make battery cathode material
Machina was picked to make LUCAS-class airframes in 2 robotic Edge Factories
Firefly signed a $1.3B+ deal to supply 36 rocket engines to AST SpaceMobile
The Marine Corps is buying 2 RIPSAW M3 robotic vehicles from Textron
Viasat won a $450M Space Force IDIQ to build the SDN Backbone ops center
Windward acquired Azimut.ai to track dark ships with cameras at ports
The Army dropped live 60mm mortars from a moving drone
MBDA detailed its AQUILA interceptor for hypersonic threats
An F-35B tested a Meteor missile for the first time
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