🔷 Saved Rounds! 5.14.24

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

They Said It
“The dogs like spend five minutes sniffing each other’s butts. That’s the phase I think we’re in. We just need to get off that. Nobody’s here to hurt anybody. Everybody’s a dog; we’re all on the same team; we’re all going to get a chance to play,” he said. “Put your baggage behind you and get focused on the real problem.”

— Lt. Gen. David Miller, head of Space Operations Command, describing the fight inside the Intelligence Community over satellite-based ISR

Zoom in

Spend time in US defense circles when China comes up, and you’re likely to hear about the potential 2027 Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Zoom in here to learn how a 2027 invasion became such a fixation.

In that Number

$9.7 Billion

The Air Force needs another $9.7 Billion to repair the damage to its Guam airbase incurred by a typhoon last year. Roughly $4.4 Billion has been spent to date.

Saved Rounds

• Poland revealed details for its $1.2B military aerostat program

• South Korea is funding a single-seat version of KAI’s FA-50 light trainer and attack aircraft

• The Air Force just awarded the first vehicle contracts for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) but is already shaping Increment 2 of the program

• Boeing and the Air Force continue E-7A Wedgetail price negotiations

• The Air Force aims to have its Integrated Capabilities Command up and running by the end of 2024

• Textron& Leonardo pitched the M-346 as the ‘no drama' option for the Navy's next jet trainer to replace the aging T-45

• DIU added emerging technology to its portfolio of commercial tech acquisition efforts

• Maxar signed a deal with Lockheed Martin to supply maps and 3D models for F-35 flight simulators

• Capella Space developed a tool to automatically ID vessels captured by satellite images

• Danti raised a $5m seed round (led by defense tech VC firm Shield Capital) for an AI-based search engine that ingests satellite imagery, drone footage, and social media info

• Lockheed Martin will roll out Poland’s first F-35 this summer

• Denmark plans to increase defense spending by $5.1B as a hedge against a Russian long-term war

• XTEND raised a $40M Series B round to advance its AI-for-drone software

• Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket launch debut is delayed to 2025

• The British Army tested a new mobile directed-energy weapon

• Shift5 introduced a GPS integrity module to ID GPS spoofing

• General Atomics & Shift5 are partnering to add cyber anomaly detection and predictive maintenance capabilities into SOCOM’s MQ-9A Reapers

• Malaysia was approved to buy Lockheed Sniper targeting pods

• The Air Force's B-2 stealth bomber could get the services new 5,000-pound-class GBU-72/B bunker buster bomb

• Microsoft deployed Open AI’s GPT-4 LLM in a top secret cloud for the Pentagon to use

• Red Cat announced the formation of an industry consortium for small drones and autonomy

• General Atomics is working with SOCOM to develop MQ-9A self-protection pods

• The Army test-fired a prototype unmanned HIMARS launcher vehicle for the first time

• SOCOM’s MC-130 floatplane on-again, off-again concept is pretty much dead

• Soaring’s resupply drone completed an autonomous resupply of ammo during an Army night time live-fire exercise

• Iceye is going to allow customers to directly task the company’s SAR imaging satellites

• Airbus finalized its acquisition of Aerovel, strengthening its drone positioning with the newly acquired Flexrotor drone

• Australia will start man-unmanned teaming MQ-28 Ghost Bat testing in 2025

• The Marine Corps plans for every logistics battalion to have resupply drones by 2028

• The Army codified its worldwide 3D model requirements for its training systems

• Boeing’s A/MH-6 Little Bird for special operations is seeing a resurrection, with plans to fly to 2034

• Xona raised a $19m Series A round for a GPS-alternative satellite navigation service

• Germany opted to have all its F-35s built in the US—not Italy

• NGA announced its direct-to-warfighter commercial analytics for maritime domain awareness

• Special Operations teased their AC-130-launched mini-cruise missile

• SNC is buying 5 used 747-8s from Korean Air to convert to Air Force doomsday planes

And finally…

• India unveiled a weird-looking bomber drone

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