🔷 Saved Rounds 9.9.25

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

Bug. On this day, way back in 1947, the first computer bug was found—literally. Engineers at Harvard found a moth stuck between 2 relay contacts in the Mark II computer.

📺 PODCAST: Like everyone in the universe, we have a podcast. Also, like everyone in the universe, we think our pod is pretty darn good. Judge for yourself: YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your content.

In that Number

$2.7 trillion

Global defense spending hit a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, jumping 9.4% — the sharpest annual increase since the Cold War ended.

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Zoom in

You may be familiar with ‘cost-plus’ contracts, where the government reimburses a vendor for the entire cost it takes to do something, plus a negotiated profit percentage. But what about ‘cost-minus’ contracts?

Zoom in here to explore this contrarian contracting take.

They Said It

“I don’t know how many times I said it, at least the first day, probably the second day too: Be uncomfortable. It’s okay to be uncomfortable because we are challenging the status quo.” 

— CAPT Matthew Lewis, program manager for the Navy’s unmanned systems portfolio, on encouraging industry to embrace discomfort to drive innovation in the Modular Attack Surface Craft program.

 ICYMI

Saved Rounds

• Tiberius Aerospace won a UK contract to be the first customer for its liquid-fueled 155mm Ramjet extended-range munition

• Matroid was awarded an Air Force contract to integrate advanced visual analytics for Project FOX

• A Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft was spotted carrying a LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) for the first time

• Technology Service Corp won a $400M SOCOM contract for ISR support

• Denmark was approved to purchase $8.5B in IBCS Patriot missile systems

• EDGE Group announced its production facility expansion in Brazil and Switzerland

• Lockheed Martin won a $26M Army contract for the NGC2 modernization initiative

• Saab won a $6.3M contract from Sweden to develop a large underwater LUUV drone

• Poland unveiled its new Tomahawk-style cruise missile dubbed Lanca

• Japan announced its plans to deploy its hypersonic glide weapon by 2027

• General Atomics & Kepler demoed a laser communication terminal that connected an aircraft to a satellite in LEO

• Lockheed Martin won a $9.8B Army contract to produce 2,000 advanced Patriot missiles 

• Telesat offered satellite bandwidth blocks to compete for a role in the Golden Dome program

• Boeing proposed a lighter version of its AH-64 Apache as an alternative in the wake of ITEP engine program cancellation plans

• Safe Pro Group, Ondas Holdings, and Unusual Machines partnered to embed AI threat detection into drone systems

• Sierra Nevada Corporation announced the first test flight of the Air Force’s E-4C SAOC

• The UK conducted ship-to-ship drone cargo deliveries

• Javelin Joint Venture won a $901M Army contract for more Javelin missiles

• Havelsan & Calidus entered a partnership to develop a B-250 aircraft training system for the UAE

• NAVAIR unveiled the first C-130 airframe being converted for the E-130J Phoenix II program

• Anduril-Meta & Rivet were selected by the Army for the IVAS recompete

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