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- 🔷 Saved Rounds 8.27.24
🔷 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!
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.
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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