🔷 Saved Rounds 8.27.24

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

They Said It
“These people have lost their minds and have spent too long in Army contracting to understand how the real world works. There is no one on the globe that does software development on a cost-plus basis.”

— Bill Greenwalt, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), on the recent kerfuffle caused by the “say-do gap” from the US Army on how it buys software

Check our latest episode with Andrew Hunter, the US Air Force’s chief weapons buyer, on how he’s steering the Air Force through an ‘acquisitions perfect storm’ and into the future.

We talk stealth bombers, nuclear missiles, AI drones, and much more!

Check it out!

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In that Number

54%

Mynaric’s stock dropped 54% in 1 day last week—and it’s continued to slide since.

The company builds optical terminals (aka laser comms) to connect satellites and is a key supplier for several satellite manufacturers, including Northrop Grumman, York Space, Rocket Lab, and Loft Federal. Expect this choke point to impact defense-related proliferated constellation projects.

Zoom in

The chart below made rounds on mil-LinkedIn, and for good reason. It shows the shift from “American industry” supporting defense to a massive, over-specialized yet isolated “defense industry.” Consolidation via mergers and acquisitions drove a big part of it. Still, it’s not over— a new report reveals 122 mergers and acquisitions in the defense market—just in the second quarter of 2024.

Zoom in here for the report this chart is from.

When the FNG is told to prep the jet for a dogfight.

You got a better caption? Post it here

Saved Rounds

• Scout Space & Dawn Aerospace are partnering on a spaceplane surveillance demo

• Australia is building a $570m factory to produce Joint Strike Missiles (JSM) for F-35s

• The Army is too dependent on SpaceX’s Starlink and is looking at diversifying

• Russia unveiled an updated loyal wingmen drone concept

• The Army activated a new aviation command…in the Arctic

• Boeing trained Australia’s first MQ-28 Ghost Bat pilot

• SpaceWERX awarded STRATFI contracts to 9 companies (list in link)

• The UK’s first military satellite is now in orbit

• Lockheed Martin’s small Stalker drone completed trials with the British Armed Forces

• South Korea was approved to buy $3.5B in Apache helicopters

• The Air Force is testing new sensors on the F-22 Raptor, part of a $7.8B upgrade program

• SandboxAQ‘s Magnetic Navigation (MagNav) GPS alternative system flew on an Air Force C-17

• BAE was tapped to upgrade flight control computers for F-15EX and F/A-18E/F fighters

• EDGE’s autonomous cargo drone prototype started flight testing (video in link)

• Canada was approved to buy 169 AIM-9X missiles

• SNC won the Army’s HADES spy plane contract, beating an L3Harris-led team

• Turkey’s Anka-III stealth drone continues to advance in flight test

• Inflatech unveiled an F-16 inflatable decoy with Ukraine markings (the company is a known provider of decoys to Kyiv)

• The Air Force opened the door to competition for a new ejection seat for the F-15, F-16, F-22, and B-1

• X-Bow’s hypersonic booster passed its preliminary design review for the Navy

• Lockheed Martin received $130m to ramp up production of stealth cruise missiles (JASSM and LRASM)

• Archer Aviation delivered its first Midnight eVTOL aircraft to the Air Force for evaluation

• Northrop Grumman is building a $200m radar site for the US Space Force…in the UK

• DARPA selected five entities across the U.S. to help commercialize agency-funded technologies

• NATO signed a contract with Planet Labs as part of the largest space project in the alliance’s history

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