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- 🔷 Saved Rounds 5.6.25
🔷 Saved Rounds 5.6.25
Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.
🌷 HEADS UP! Mother’s Day is this Sunday. You’re welcome.
Hellhound
Check out our latest episode, a conversation with Cummings Aerospace on their Hellhound 3D-printed jet-powered kamikaze drones.
They Said It
“We still have a lot to learn to simply get to this thing airborne, flying, and executing next to an F-35, and not hitting each other. I know there’s a lot of work out there, but that’s important to make sure that we become lethal.”
— Col. Derek Brannon, director of the Marine Corps’ Cunningham Group, on the manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) experimentation campaign with the XQ-58
Word of the Week
APFIT: Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) is a program run by the Pentagon’s Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to help selected technologies from small and non-traditional companies cross the ‘valley of death’ and get into production. Awards range from $10M to $50M.
Why it Matters: The FY2026 cycle starts this month. May 8th is the first virtual office hours; here’s how to sign up.
You asked for patches—we listened.
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Tweet of the Week
This should be the opening briefing slide anytime the Joint Staff is being briefed on anything in the Pacific.
— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander)
12:01 AM • May 5, 2025
Saved Rounds
TSC (with AEVEX & Pipistrel) revealed a new Group 4 ISR platform that can fly for 3+ days
AEVEX’s Atlas drone was selected for the Army’s Launched Effects-Short Range (LE-SR) demo
Astrotech secured a $77.5M contract to accelerate pre-launch satellite processing
Airbus will buy parts of Spirit AeroSystems’ US and UK assets so they do not go to Boeing
Northrop Grumman is planning to make its Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) accessible to soldiers through a mobile app
The Netherlands was approved to buy $2.2B in Tomahawk cruise missiles
Spire Global completed the $241M sale of its space-based maritime tracking business to Belgian analytics provider Kpler
Piasecki acquired Kaman Air Vehicles’ KARGO program (cargo drones competing for a Marine Corps program)
Epirus delivered a new counter drone microwave weapon prototype to the Marine Corps
Norway F-35s received their first Joint Strike Missile (JSM) from Kongsberg
Apex raised a $200M Series C round to boost satellite production
The Army plans to boost GMLRS rocket production to 9,000 per year
Anduril introduced a compact Pulsar EW variant
DZYNE launched a new variant of its Dronebuster handheld counter-drone system
The Italian Army received its first UH-169D helicopter
Poland was approved to buy $1.3B in AIM-120D missiles
SiFly exited stealth mode and unveiled 2 new quadcopter products (4X endurance, 10X range vs current market)
India’s DRDL latest scramjet test surpassed 1,000 seconds
Northrop Grumman unveiled Lumberjack, a jet-powered loitering munition that dispenses Hatchet precision bomblets
Dark is building an air-launched satellite grabber
Mercury acquired Star Lab to boost secure processing
AeroVironment completed its BlueHalo acquisition
Radian Aerospace revealed its reentry vehicle
The Marine Corps is considering modular mission payloads for its new CH-53K helo
The Space Force selected 12 companies for its 10-year, $237M small satellite contract
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