🔷 Saved Rounds 7.16.24

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, Pandora, iHeartRadio, etc.

They Said It
"We are not just building widgets or just doing studies. We're actually trying to build end-to-end capabilities."

— Arthur Grijalva, The Space Force’s SpaceWERX director

Word of the Week

Foreign Military Financing: FMF is a foreign policy tool that provides grants for acquiring US defense equipment to strategic partners and allies who otherwise may not be able to afford it or where the US wants to boost region-specific national defense capabilities.

Why it matters: The US is supplying Poland with a new $2B loan through FMF. If this sounds familiar, you’re right—this is Poland’s second $2B FMF loan in a year—the first one was last September.

In that Number

2,500

Latvia will deliver over 2,500 military drones to Ukraine this month.

Saved Rounds

• The UK restarted its naval heavy lift drone effort (air drones dropping sub drones, torpedoes, etc)

• Airbus won a $2.5B contract from Germany for a 2-satellite communications system

• Italy is buying 24 Eurofighter Typhoons

• Japan and the Philippines signed a defense pact

• Dawn Aerospace’s reusable rocket-powered drone was cleared for supersonic flight

• X-Bow raised $70m to boost solid rocket motor production

• South Korea is deploying laser weapons to intercept North Korean drones

• Armada raised an extra $40m via a Microsoft-led funding round to develop mobile data centers for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network

• Metrea bought all of France’s KC-135 tankers as the private aerial refueling company grows

• AEVEX Aerospace expanded its Tampa, FL facility to ramp up drone production

• The US-built Gaza Pier will be put back together for a couple of days to finish deliveries…then dismantled

• ICEYE signed a deal with Ukraine to provide SAR satellite imagery for defense

• Thales plans to 5X rocket motor production to 5,000 annually to meet European demand

• Northrop Grumman finalized a deal to coproduce ammo in Ukraine, the first US defense company to make weapons inside Ukrainian borders since the war began

• Slovakia is looking to buy 4 more F-16 fighters on top of the 14 aircraft already ordered

• Lockheed Martin was awarded a $4.6m contract for DARPA’s AIR program—developing AI agents for live, multi-ship, beyond visual range (BVR) missions (EpiSci’s award was previously announced)

• Japan released a video of a hypersonic glide vehicle test

• The Pentagon is opening its biggest big data analytics tool—Advana—to multiple vendors to scale even larger

• Morocco bought Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US to bolster its air defense capabilities

• Air Force Special Operations is looking for a swarm carrier drone that can launch from a C-130 and deploy drones of its own

• The Marine Corps released a new deception doctrine

• D-Orbit formed a US venture to pursue satellite manufacturing

• AE Industrial Partners (AEI) closed a new $1.3B investment fund focused on aerospace and defense tech companies

• The Navy approved L3Harris’ prototype design for the next-gen F/A-18 electronic warfare (EW) system

• The Army is looking for a lightweight radar for high-altitude spy balloons

• The Army is looking to revive a rail-gun initiative with plans to field a mobile 155mm cannon that shoots hyper-velocity projectiles

• The Air Force recently flight-tested the B-52’s new ALQ-172 electronic warfare system (built by L3Harris)

• NATO’s DIANA defense tech accelerator announced 5 focus areas for companies to propose (applications close August 9th)

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