🔷 Saved Rounds 4.15.25

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

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In that Number

25%

The Navy revealed its 6th-gen F/A-XX fighter will have just 25% more range than its current 4th and 5th-gen fighter inventory.

Zoom in

The last Secretary of the Air Force punted the F-47 NGAD fighter decision to the new administration, and the decision was made to press forward with the program.

Zoom in here for his thoughts on why he deferred the decision and why he was second-guessing the F-47 program writ large.

They Said It

“I will tell you that we are definitely in the follow of those three services as we look to see how the Air Force is developing and fielding things, quite frankly, in a more simple operational environment than what is required for a ship-based system.”

— Rear Adm. Michael “Buzz” Donnelly, Director of the Air Warfare Division, on the state of the Navy’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program compared to the Air Force

The Navy may be behind, but they are coordinating to ensure both services’ CCAs are interchangeable with each other’s forces

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Tweet of the Week

Saved Rounds

• L3Harris delivered the firs Meadowlands satellite jammer to the Space Force

• Karman acquired Metal Technology Inc. for $90m to accelerate access to critical and classified strategic missile defense programs

• Anduril unveiled a new family of modular torpedo-like undersea drones

• Metal Shark unveiled cost-effective unmanned surface vessel

• SandboxAQ raised $450M in Series E funding to further its large quantitative models (LQMs)

• UVision acquired Trim Robotics, expanding its loitering munition portfolio

• Virtus Solis raised a $50M Series A funding round to develop space-based solar power—demo on orbit in 2026

• Sweden is buying Thales GM200 MM/C mobile air defense radars

• Raytheon tapped Northrop and Nammo to establish new production lines for MK72 solid rocket motors

• The Czech Republic may extend its Gripen C/D fighter jet lease from Sweden from 2027 to 2035.

• The Marine Corps is fielding hand-held counter-drone systems to infantry units

• The Army is 3D printing drones for soldiers to train against

• Textron (with Leonardo) is pushing the M-346N for the Navy’s new jet trainer

• Anduril tested a hypersonic rocket motor for the Navy’s SM-6 missile program

• The Air Force’s F-35A ‘Frankenjet’ returned to the skies

• 3dB Labs was tapped by the Army to develop an electromagnetic spectrum situational awareness system

• HII delivered the first Lionfish underwater drone to the Navy

• Astroscale will refuel 2 Space Force spacecraft in geostationary orbit next year

• Shield AI unveiled an enhanced V-BAT drone

• JF Taylor acquired Bugeye, a defense sim and training tech company

• Kepler signed Axiom Space as its first customer for on-orbit compute

• General Atomics & Rafael are partnering to develop Bullseye, a cruise missile based on the Israeli Ice Breaker standoff weapon

• L3Harris partnered with Kuiper for hybrid SATCOM resilience

• SDA launched the contest for 54 ‘Tranche 3’ missile tracking satellites

• Umbra was awarded a Space Force STRATFI tapped to develop maritime surveillance satellites

• Space Force’s Foo Fighter missile-tracking satellite program cleared milestone review

• General Atomics is developing an airborne laser pod for MQ-9B to shoot down drones

• Leidos unveiled a low-cost 'Sea Dart' underwater drone

• Indonesia may join Turkey’s 5th-gen fighter jet program

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