🔷 Saved Rounds 3.24.26

Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.

📺 PODCAST: Check it out on YouTube or download the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your content.

In that Number

min-2030s

The F-47 and F/A-XX 6th-gen fighters will not be available until the mid-2030s, requiring the services to maintain older F/A-18E/F and F-22 fleets potentially through 2040.

Badass Patches is running a Patch Design Contest for Military Kids in honor of the Month of the Military Child.

Kids (18 and under) draw up a patch on the downloadable template, submissions go up for community voting, and the winning design gets turned into a real morale patch that'll be available for purchase…with 25 free patches going home to the young artist!

Best of all, a portion of the proceeds benefits Our Military Kids.

Artwork cutoff is April 10, so get started here!

Zoom in

After a decade of R&D, laser weapons are primed to hit the field this year.

Zoom in here for a great summary that gets you all caught up.

They Said It

“We had to cut down significantly to get to [$1.5 trillion]. We had more ideas and more concepts on how to spend the money, and then we had to deal with. And so we took a long time to trim that down to the most essential things.”

— Jules Hurst, Acting Pentagon Comptroller and CFO, describing the prioritization process for the record-breaking FY2027 budget request 

 ICYMI

Saved Rounds

• Congress (finally) passed the SBIR re-authorization bill

• The US Intel Community released its Annual Threat Assessment

• Northrop Grumman's Talon IQ flew Shield AI's autonomy software

• MHI integrated Shield AI’s autonomy onto its test drone

• The Air Force deferred B-52 radar upgrades while planning new engine testing

• Raytheon received a $2.B contract expansion for AEHF SATCOM terminals

• Sensofusion revealed its drone factory that builds 50 inceptor drones daily

• MDA Space raised $300M in its IPO (NYSE:MDA)

• Pratt & Whitney is supplying engines for Leidos’ AGM-190A small cruise missile

• Anduril won an $87M Army contract for a C-UAS C2 program

• The US is going to get F-35 without radars due to delays in the new APG-85

• The Navy established 5 new acquisition offices as part of acquisition reform

• Merlin Labs raised $200M via IPO for its autonomous flight tech

• The Pentagon is considering opening a second B-21 production line 

• Robinson Helicopter launched a new business unit for unmanned helicopters

• Raytheon received an $8.4B MDA contract for SM-3 missiles

• Top Aces won a $33.2M contract for Argentine F-16 pilot training

• Gecko Robotics won a $71M Navy contract for ship maintenance robots

• Fire Point is almost done with a local engine for its Flamingo cruise missiles

• Heven AeroTech won an Army contract for hydrogen-powered drones

• Kratos won a $446M Space Force contract for missile-tracking ground systems

• The Army received its first optionally piloted Black Hawk

• Japan's "Platypus" EC-2 Stand-Off Jammer aircraft completed its maiden flight

• Lockheed Martin completed the first PrSM Increment 2 flight test

• The Air Force is creating a $16B propulsion contract to develop engine tech

• ZenaTech developed a single-use autonomous interceptor drone for defense

• Japan received its first Joint Strike Missiles for F-35A fighter jets

• Boeing was tapped by the Navy for Harpoon software updates

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