🔷 Saved Rounds! 3.5.24

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, Pandora, iHeartRadio, etc.

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⚔️ ON FUTURE WAR: Check out the first episode of a new podcast series called On Future War. It’s pretty legit, and we should know—we’re one of the co-hosts 😎 Apple, Spotify, YouTube

They Said It
“It’s cost prohibitive to be able to say that we’re going to build enough Air Force to do it the way we did before and have air superiority for days and weeks on end. That’s probably not affordable. It’s also not necessary.”

— Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin

Zoom in

Spurred by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Europe is now building an “économie de guerre” — a war economy — to underwrite its security. Can they master it?

Zoom in here to learn more.

In that Number

17

Boeing received a $3.4B contract for 17 P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft; 14 will go to the Royal Canadian Air Force and 3 will go Germany’s Navy.

Saved Rounds

• Lockheed Martin will continue developing its X2 rotary wing tech for the international market (it was competing in the defunct US Army FARA program)

• SpaceFields closed an $800k seed round, making yet another company that is jumping into the solid rocket motor (SRM) market

• The Navy is trying to use quantum computers to task spy satellites

• Unseenlabs raised $92m to double its satellite constellation for tracking maritime vessels in near real-time

• Northrop Grumman warns it could lay off 1,000 people in its space division

• Army Special Operations’ new Little Bird helos will be dubbed the MH-6R

• China’s Sky Hawk stealth ISR drone started flight testing (looks like an RQ-170 – see video clip)

• IOMAX is delivering ISR-upgraded Cessnas to Jordan

• DroneShield (Aussie tech counter-drone startup) revealed its financials—FY23 marked its first profitable year (most defense-tech startups are not profitable)

• The Air Force plans on delivering operational eVTOL aircraft to units in 2025

• Taiwan’s first domestically-made submarine is in the water

• Austria is the first customer of Rheinmetall's Skyranger 30 gun turret air-defense system

• NASA released a report on space-based solar power, calling it viable but not cost-effective until after 2050

• Raytheon & Rafael’s joint venture (R2S) started construction of an Iron Dome missile factory in Arkansas

• The UK is looking for a new medium-lift helicopter and plans to award a contract in 2025

• France’s Thales and Spain’s Indra announce new collaboration agreement

• Sikorsky disclosed plans to build a hybrid-electric VTOL tiltrotor for dual-use applications

• The Air Force is looking to replace its 15-ton GBU-57 bomb with a more svelte 11-ton weapon called the Next Generation Penetrator (NGP)

• The British Army’s AH-64E attack helicopter is about to be operational

• The Space Force tapped 4 companies to develop C2 system prototypes for a missile warning satellite constellation

• Germany received its first KC-130J tanker-transport aircraft

• India’s military is buying 5G-enabled drones

• France’s Rafale F4.1 fighter attained initial operational capability

• Boeing agreed to a $51m settlement over export violations surrounding technical data

• Northrop Grumman tapped Viasat to support the Air Force’s Global Lightning commercial space internet projects

• GE is splitting up and rebranding its aviation segment as GE Aerospace

• The Navy is looking for cheaper air-launched cruise missiles

• Poland is buying a $2.5B ICBS (Integrated Battle Command System), the first export of the US Army’s new C2 system

• Bell and Leonardo signed an agreement to work together on tiltrotor helicopters 13 years after they broke off a similar partnership

• Australia released a defense industrial strategy

• Kratos is preparing to issue $345m of shares of its common stock

• NRO added Umbra to the next phase of its commercial RF-sensing contract

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