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- 🔷 Saved Rounds 4.7.26
🔷 Saved Rounds 4.7.26
Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.
Word of the Week
Popcorn: a military brevity term for a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) aircraft departing the landing zone. Usually followed by a number of recovered personnel.
Why it Matters: Popcorn plus one—the U.S. military rescued a downed F-15E WSO in Iran. The mission is being described as one of the most challenging and complex in the history of U.S. special operations.
In that Number
$145 billion
NATO has identified a $145 billion shortfall in shared munition and air defense requirements across member-states.
Zoom in
The U.S. military is may not realize it is ceding situational awareness to contractors by outsourcing the ontologies—software labeling of threat, readiness, and escalation—that drive most modern C2 and ISR fusion platforms. While technical interfaces are regulated, the semantic layer remains proprietary.
Zoom in here to learn more about the nuances and risk.
They Said It
“When competitions are structured to exclude commercial, nontraditional defense companies, the Navy risks paying more while receiving less: less innovation, less flexibility, and less capability.”
— Saronic’s spokesperson, regarding the federal lawsuit the company filed to halt a Navy contract for the sustainment of Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mission modules and unmanned surface vessels (USVs)
Military software SUCKS.
Defense Unicorns is fixing it.
All modern hardware depends on good software, but in the U.S. military, most software sucks.
Rob Slaughter, co-founder and CEO of Defense Unicorns, joins the show to unpack why this is happening and what they are doing to fix it.
Why is the process broken? Is open-source software good or bad? Why are all the McDonald’s ice cream machines broken?
You’re gonna learn a ton about software—we guarantee!
Check it out!
Saved Rounds
Northrop Grumman won a $127M Navy contract for 28 Coyote anti-ship missile targets
Procurement Sciences acquired Rogue AI for AI contracting workflows
Northrop Grumman & Bechtel are prototyping Sentinel ICBM launch silos
Kymeta revealed the KuKa 8 Series multi-orbit antenna for defense users
Lockheed Martin is expanding Javelin production using AI forecasting
Taiwan’s Army is expected to replace OH-58D helicopters with JUMP 20 drones
Starcloud has raised $170M at a $1.1B valuation for orbital AI
The Navy commissioned the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Massachusetts
Canada & NATO allies increased defense spending by 20% in 2025
The Navy installed a 3D-printed welded flange on a submarine for the first time
Overmatch Ventures raised a $250M second fund for defense and space
Varda‘s W-6 was launched into space to advance autonomous hypersonic flight
The European Commission will spend $1.7B to ramp up weapons production
RTX was awarded a $3.8B contract modification for F-35 engine production
NGA launched 3 cube satellites to measure Earth’s magnetic field accurately
Velo3D won a $9.8M DoW contract to provide additively manufactured components
Collins Elbit Vision Systems won a $585 million F-35 helmet display contract
Lockheed Martin opened a Rapid Fielding Center to accelerate defense prototyping
The Pentagon & Boeing signed a deal to triple PAC-3 seeker production
Manna Air Delivery raised a $50M Series B to expand its drone delivery ops
Ursa Major expanded its facilities to produce affordable hypersonic missile systems
R2 Wireless expanded its ODIN platform to provide passive RF sensing
DroneShield & Origin Robotics signed an MOU for counter-UAS collaboration
Lockheed Martin won a $1.36B Navy contract for hypersonic missile production
Honeywell & Odys Aviation partnered to deliver an airborne counter-UAS solution
Edgewing won a $912M contract for the Tempast fighter from the UK, Italy & Japan
Aurora moved the X-65 fuselage into final systems integration for testing
MGI Engineering launched TigerShark in a strategic partnership with Auterion
L3Harris & Comtech introduced a multi-orbit tactical SATCOM military modem
Anduril won the Navy's Tactical Missile Innovation Prize for next-gen development
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