🔷 Saved Rounds 4.16.24

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, or wherever you get your content.

They Said It
“I don’t have the capability to take in 40 things or 50 things at the same time. The problem [that] the staff and I have talked a lot about is that integration and sharing [of data], trying to compile that data on one screen, one pane.”

— Rear Adm. Jim Aiken, on the wave of new drone systems and the problems they are creating due to the lack of integrating the data those systems are generating

Zoom in

Thanks to the falling costs of launching things into space, the number of satellites with sensors in orbit has rapidly grown, and access to this data has never been easier. That is unless you’re in national security with the US government.

Zoom in here to learn more about the ongoing bureaucratic fight over access (or gating access) to Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) satellite sensor data.

In that Number

10% and 15%

The Russian air force has lost only 10 percent of its fleet in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, but Russia’s army has grown by 15 percent over the same timeframe.

Saved Rounds

• Northrop Grumman unveiled its Manta Ray underwater drone prototype

• The Space Force issued a Commercial Space Strategy

• Greece agreed to buy 35 UH-60M Black Hawks as part of a $2B deal

• Max Space announced plans to develop inflatable space station modules

• BAE and VRAI partnered to apply extended reality (XR) and AI to jet pilot training

• Ukraine received approval for $138m to sustain HAWK SAMS (surface-to-air missile systems)

• Itay’s military leadership has deemed them below the limit of survival

• BlueHalo was tapped by the Army to support its Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) program

• Vast to use Starlink for space station broadband communications

• Canada is increasing defense spending, with a goal of hitting 1.76% of GDP by 2030 (it’s 1.38% now)

• Google is now working with top-secret info

• Thales is ramping up production of surveillance radars amid rising global demand

• Rocket Lab & True Anomaly were selected for Space Force’s next rapid response launch mission experiment

• Saronic demoed its Cutlass and Spyglass drone boats during a recent Navy exercise

• Boeing showed off a model of a MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone armed with LRASM stealth anti-ship missiles

• SpaceX’s contract to supply Starlink in Ukraine is reportedly $23m

• The UK launched an initiative for contract red air

• Lockheed Martin unveils a new hypersonic missile which can be carried internally by the F-35

• Serbia is buying Rafale fighters from France

• Lockheed Martin’s ship-based AN/SPY-7(V)1 radar demoed tracking space objects for the first time

• Fluor won a$409m Air Force contract to build an airfield on the Pacific island of Tinian

• IAI & Aerotor are joining forces to create a long-range quadcopter

• Boeing plans to shutter the F/A-18 Super Hornet line in 2027

• Saildrone and Thales are collaborating on using drone boats to detect submarines

• The Marine Corps delayed the 1st CH-53K deployment to 2026

• Iridium signed a 5-year contract with L3 Harris to provide satellite time and location services for the FAA

• Maxar plans to increase the size of its satellite intel constellation

• The Pentagon is working with Ukraine and SpaceX to prevent Russian exploitation of Starlink

• The SDA plans to test space-based Link-16 with Norway this summer

• India is buying 97 more Tejas Mk 1A light combat fighter jets

• SpaceX launched its first rideshare mission dedicated to mid-inclination orbits

• Lockheed Martin was awarded a $4.1B contract to upgrade the battle command system for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)

And finally…

• Mission Space Acquisition raised $100m and filed to go public—it’s a blank check company (aka a SPAC) that intends to acquire aerospace and defense companies and take them public (cash out on the stock exchange)

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