🔷 Your mission: Read. Enjoy. Learn. Share. Don’t forget the last step—it’s what keeps us going.
🚨 ALERT! We’ve been cooking up something big, and it’ll hit your inbox on Thursday. Yes, we said Thursday. It’ll also be accompanied by a podcast, so FENCE in by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
In That Number
Mach 1.21
Hermeus’ Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 drone flew Mach 1.21, making it the world's first privately developed, unmanned supersonic jet.
Following this success, the Defense Innovation Unit awarded the company an additional $159 million to fund further flight tests and develop the drone's capability to carry and release payloads at high speeds.
On the Radar
DARPA
SpaceX Kill Chains. SpaceX had 2 big deal announcements this week from the Space Force: a $4.1B contract for satellites to track airborne targets and a $2.2B contract for a LEO network to link sensors to shooters.
The Merge’s Take: These are very real dollars to finally field long-range kill chains (LRKC). The network program is called Space Data Network (SDN), which is based on Starshield (milspec version of Starlink), and is underway—this funding accelerates the effort. The $4.1B contract is for a constellation that can sense and track airborne targets from orbit and is part of the long-standing effort to field a space-based Air Moving Target Indication (AMTI) capability to reduce reliance on aircraft like the E-3 AWACS and E-7 Wedgetail. Keep an eye on the timing: the contract schedule is to field this constellation by 2028, which is lightning fast for anything in space, let alone a constellation.
DZYNE
Converted ISR Drones. DZYNE Technologies is sending upgraded, turbocharged versions of its ULTRA ISR drones to the Middle East for evaluation. Based on a commercial sport-glider frame and powered by a piston engine, the upgraded propulsion will enable the drones to fly at 30,000 feet for 60 hours.
The Merge’s Take: With the number of $30M MQ-9s lost during Epic Fury, there is a rising demand for more attritable ISR, and ULTRA represents a niche segment to keep an eye on: the conversion of commercial gliders and ultralights into ISR drones. This approach skips the developmental engineering steps, selects a suitable flying solution, and then focuses resources on adapting it to suit. ULTRA is based on a German Stemme S12 motor-glider, whereas Safran’s Patroller and CADG’s Helix use Stemme’s ES-15/ASP S15. DZYNE also has LEAP, an adapted Pipistrel Sinus, which is the same platform used by AEVEX’s Mariana and UAVOS’ Albatross 2.2.
AI
Starlink Price Hikes in Iran War. The Pentagon reluctantly accepted a fivefold price hike demanded by SpaceX for satellite connectivity guiding LUCAS kamikaze drones over Iran. SpaceX argued that the high-tempo drone strike operations utilized an enterprise-grade "aviation tier" service priced at $25,000 per terminal per month, rather than the standard $5,000 mobility package. The pricing shift nearly doubled the deployment cost per loitering munition, fueling severe friction as defense officials struggle to find viable low-Earth-orbit alternatives.
The Merge’s Take: That’s a ton of money for one-time-use connectivity, even by defense-dollar standards. There are other options on the market, but they aren’t as pervasive and lack the coverage and bandwidth Starlink (or Starshield) uses. We expect this dependency to change in the next 1-2 years as alternatives are explored (OneWeb and Viasat’s VuaLe) and new constellations come online (Amazon’s Project Kuiper).
AI
Amazon for FMS. The US Army is developing an Amazon-style marketplace to dramatically accelerate foreign military sales (FMS) to allied nations. Initially opening to 25 partner nations across Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the platform will feature an initial catalog of pre-cleared unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and counter-UAS tech to bypass traditional, months-long government-to-government procurement delays.
The Merge’s Take: The traditional FMS process is notoriously sluggish for several reasons, the main one being that each request is treated as a unique case and built like a hand-made wooden shoe. By "Amazon-ifying" the acquisition of pre-cleared gear to pre-cleared nations, it operationalizes the "America First Arms Transfer Strategy," using foreign capital to rapidly warm up and scale domestic production lines. The foundation of this FMS marketplace is the Army’s UAS marketplace—literally built by Amazon and launched just months ago—which lets units buy approved drones at pre-negotiated prices.
TRIVIA
On May 31, 1945, the final unit of the most-produced American aircraft of World War II was delivered. With over 18,000 built, which legendary aircraft was it?
A) B-17 Flying Fortress
B) B-24 Liberator
C) P-47 Thunderbolt
D) P-51 Mustang
They Said It
“I will never co-locate a sensor and a shooter again. Ever. It's just bad business.”
— Brigadier General Patrick Costello, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Fires Center of Excellence, on the critical need to decouple air defense assets components to survive in a modern battlespace.
Knowledge Bombs
Applied Aerospace & Defense is targeting a $3.6B valuation in its IPO
Picogrid raised a $45M Series A funding round for product expansion
AV was awarded a $20M AFRL contract for aerospace ceramic research
Stark aimed for a $2.6B valuation in new fundraising for drone development
Voltage Vessels built a 3D-printed boat using volcanic basalt composite
Skyfront won an Army contract for Perimeter 8 drone integration
Vector & SR2 Defense are building Shahed drone clones in Saudi Arabia
Observable Space raised $90M and won a $94M Space Force contract
Firefly Aerospace expanded its Texas campus for spacecraft production
A Turkish startup developed a spray-on stealth material for drones
Orbit Fab & Thales Alenia Space partnered on satellite refueling systems
The Navy selected 7 MUSV designs to advance to the prototype phase
Viasat & Intelsat secured a $437M Space Force contract for PTS-G satellites
General Atomics' MQ-20 drone was successfully controlled by an F-35 pilot
Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat conducted its first flight tests in the US
Boeing completed a B-1 pylon design to carry hypersonic weapons
Quantum Systems & Destinus are preparing for potential 2027 IPOs
TelePIX & Bellatrix Aerospace partnered for a VLEO satellite mission
The Army evaluated DZYNE’s IonStrike drone interceptor for Europe
ImageSat International announced that they can track ground-moving targets from space, day or night
💎 Free Merch! 💎
Don't keep us a secret!
Share the Merge = earn free swag.
It's that simple.
{{rp_personalized_text}}
Or copy and paste this link: {{rp_refer_url}}
ANSWER B) B-24 Liberator. On May 31, 1945, the U.S. Air Force took delivery of the last of 18,188 B-24 Liberators. Famously co-produced by 5 plants—including Ford Motor Company—the Liberator’s long range and heavy payload made it essential for everything from bombing missions over Europe to long-range maritime patrols in the Pacific.
USAF
Interested in advertising?
Contact us here.
