🔷 Saved Rounds 7.30.24

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

🪄 In Sunday’s feature on the Arctic, we said Norway and Sweden joined NATO after Russia’s 2022 invasion…when we meant to say Finland and Sweden—Norway was an OG member.

🔹 Shout out to @30mmshells for the laser-etched A-10 30mm shell we’re giving away this week. They just launched and can laze anything with your logo, so hit them up via DM. We’ll pick a winner next weekend!

They Said It
“We’re not just designing another stunt. We’re designing something you can go into full-rate production on.”

— David Alexander, president of General Atomics, on the company’s all-in effort to build a Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) to fly in 2025 and have a production line ready to scale

Zoom in

The Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program is getting shade from all directions over its acquisition and technical approach. Can the Army build a self-driving car and deploy it in 2028.

Zoom in here to get up to speed on the conversation.

In that Number

18%

Annual global military space spending jumped 18% to $57B in 2023.

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Saved Rounds

• MBDA’s Spear cruise missiles are getting an AI-based collaborative weapons capability, complete with algorithms and missile-to-missile networking

• The Air Force officially stood up its Integrated Capabilities Office to institutionalize the speed, agility, and rapid innovation

• KEF Robotics won an Air Force TACFI contract for aircraft autonomy software

• Raytheon signed a deal with Italy’s Avio to augment US Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) production

• Greece signed a deal to buy 20 F-35A fighters

• KBR is buying LinQuest for $737m to expand its defense services

• Sikorsky is designing a larger version of its ‘rotor blown wing’ drone for an undisclosed customer

• Embraer sold 6 A-29 Super Tucano light attack planes to Paraguay

• The Army is interested in the SM-6 missile as a possible new addition to its air and missile defense arsenal

• The Air Force’s ULTRA surveillance drone recently stayed airborne for 3 days

• Northrop Grumman expects the next lot of B-21 bombers to be profitable

• Phoenix Air Group was awarded a Navy contract to provide airborne electronic warfare training services

• BAE & Red 6 will trial augmented reality on Hawk trainer jets for the UK’s Royal Air Force

• Star Catcher raised a $12m seed round to develop an orbital power grid that beams solar energy to spacecraft in low-Earth orbit

• Akima won a $480m Space Force contract to modernize the service’s Satellite Control Network

• The Air Force will miss its goal to better connect its mobility aircraft, it's not funded…and not on the unfunded priorities list

• Saronic closed a $175m Series B fundraise to scale production of its autonomous drone boats

• Bell is stepping away from Spirit AeroSystems as the fuselage provider for the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) after Boeing’s acquisition of Spirit is finalized

• Israel’s IAI revealed a new scaled-down air-to-surface cruise missile called Wind Demon (300 pounds with a 120-mile range)

• Mastodon Design was awarded a $99m Army contract to deliver backpack jammers for soldiers

• Boeing is exploring the idea of using the F-15EX as a stand-off jammer like the EA-18G Growler

• Airbus launched plans for an extended-range A330-based tanker transport called MRTT+

• RTX is ramping up production of Coyote interceptors and AIM-9X Sidewinders to meet soaring counter-drone demands

• oneNav developed a commercial “L5 direct” GPS receiver that directly acquires L5-band signals without first locking onto the older L1 signals, making it more resistant to GPS jamming

• Leonardo’s BriteCloud flare-expendable decoy jammer is getting integrated into US F-35s

• UK is buying $227m in Thales’ new Martlet lightweight multi-role missiles to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine

• The Air Force’s B-52 engine replacement program could top $13B

• General Atomics delivered the second MQ-9B to the UK’s Royal Air Force

• Lockheed Martin will compete the project to overhaul the F-35’s cooling system, pitting Honeywell Aerospace against Collins Aerospace (RTX-owned)

• Sweden commissioned a study on using Gripen fighter jets to launch satellites into space

• Embraer sealed a deal to deliver 9 C-390 Millennium transport aircraft to the Netherlands and Austria

• Lockheed Martin signaled the F-35’s price might rise

And Finally…

• OKSI was tapped by the Air Force and SOCOM to integrate their ARMGDN seeker on BAE’s APKWS rocket munition to enable rapid engagements of multiple air or ground targets via ripple fire of multiple precision-guided rockets

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