Looks like Shield AI is getting serious about the whole CCA thing. Yesterday, the company announced that it’s teaming up with jet engine megalith GE Aerospace ($GE) to power its newly announced little drone fighter, X-BAT. The two companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding stating that “the F110-GE-129 engine, featuring the advanced Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust […]
If you’ve learned one thing from this newsletter, we hope it’s that everyone and their mom wants to find a cheaper, better, faster way to shoot drones out of the sky. Some shoot them with mini-missiles, others hit them with jammers, and others still send counter-drones to pick them out of the sky. But that […]
Remember that Firehawk winning streak we covered last month? Well, turns out the energetics startup wasn’t quite finished. Yesterday, the company announced—just two months after closing a $60M funding—that it’s received an additional “eight-figure” strategic investment from Hanwha Defense USA, according to a company spokesperson. Firehawk CEO Will Edwards told Tectonic that the partnership will […]
For everyone who thought we were done with the tiny plane mania for a while, think again. Anduril is back, baby. On Friday afternoon, the defense tech megalith announced that its YFQ-44A prototype for the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) program has officially notched its first flight in California. “Anduril and the U.S. Air Force began […]
Well, looks like the sailboat drones are getting a major, deadly upgrade. Yesterday, USV company Saildrone announced that it’s secured a $50M investment from Lockheed Martin and that it will build a whole bunch of the prime’s weapons onto its boats. Saildrone CEO Rich Jenkins also told Tectonic that the two companies will work together […]
Strap in. We’re taking another trip to outer space, friends. Yesterday, SATCOM company ALL.SPACE announced that it’s teaming up with connectivity company and Google spinout Aalyria to combine the former’s Hydra terminals with the latter’s Spacetime network orchestration software. Now, why do we as defense tech nerds care? Well, in layman’s terms, this means that […]
We talk a whole lot about the hardware and software that enable warfighting in this newsletter, but there is a whole other corner of defense that we haven’t shed a lot of light on: biosecurity. But perhaps it’s time we paid this sci-fi-scary corner of the defense tech world a little bit more attention. On […]
The hype for hypersonics is back, baby. On Friday, hypersonic missile company Castelion announced that it has won multiple awards to integrate its Blackbeard “hypersonic strike weapon” (read: super-fast missile) onto operational US Army and Navy platforms. Castelion couldn’t reveal too many details of the contracts—the DoD is keeping deets hush-hush during the shutdown—but Castelion […]
If you’re going to make friends as an autonomy company, it’s probably pretty helpful if one of those friends is one of the most powerful and valuable chip companies in the world. Yesterday, maritime autonomy darling Saronic announced that it’s officially inked a “strategic collaboration” with the chipmaking giant NVIDIA (which has a $4.43T market […]
In case you weren’t aware, Europe is, like, kinda freaking out over its defense posture. There’s a whole-ass war still waging on its eastern front, the US has become a less-than-reliable ally, and, well, defense stores are not necessarily where everyone wants them to be. Defense budgets are on the rise, but the continent—based on […]
