Things are speeding up, and quick. High-speed aircraft company Hermeus announced on Tuesday that it’s completed the long-awaited flight test of its Quarterhorse Mk 1 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, marking a “significant step in Hermeus’ development of high-Mach and hypersonic aircraft,” according to the company. Hermeus aims to use super-quick, iterative development […]
Way, way back in February (we were so young, so innocent), we wrote about autonomous vehicle software company Applied Intuition acquiring EpiSci, which builds autonomy software for everything from drones, to planes, to boats. Well, it seems the first fruits of the acquisition have been born. On Tuesday, the company unveiled two hot new defense […]
As we’ve said a few times in the last couple of weeks, it’s always good to remember that cutting-edge defense tech is way, way more than drones and hypersonic missiles (though those things are super-cool and super-important too). AI is transforming more than just weapons systems—it’s also changing the way that the US gathers, analyzes, […]
Remember when we said that some of the most cutting-edge defense tech isn’t necessarily the flying, sexy stuff? Well, we’re back to prove our point. This morning, military operations software company Adyton announced to Tectonic in an exclusive release that they’ve received $11M in funding led by Venrock, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Liquid 2 […]
Blast off. Yesterday morning, Venus Aerospace completed a successful flight test of its rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) deep in the New Mexico desert. According to the company, this is the first-ever successful high-thrust RDRE flight test in the United States. “In four years, we’ve taken [the RDRE] from an academic concept to a fully […]
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Maritime autonomy is all the rage, and the hype only seems to be growing. This morning, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) company Vatn Systems announced a twofer in an exclusive release to Tectonic: First, they’re opening a new, higher-capacity production facility in Bristol, Rhode Island. And second, […]
It’s been quite the week for AeroVironment (now officially called AV). Hot on the heels of finalizing their $4.1B BlueHalo acquisition, the defense-company-formerly-known-as-a-drone-company unveiled two new products at SOFWeek: Red Dragon, a one-way attack drone, and Titan 4, an upgraded cUAS system. All jammed up: Red Dragon—which looks a bit like a torpedo with wings […]
Not all defense innovation is flying, drone-y things. Sometimes, it’s the very materials that make it possible to build advanced systems, like metals. Enter: Foundation Alloy. This morning, the advanced metals manufacturing company announced a $7.5M funding round, led by Alumni Ventures, America’s Frontier Fund, Engine Ventures, El Cap, Material Impact, and Yamaha Motor Ventures. […]
The Anduril empire just keeps on growing. This morning, everyone’s favorite defense tech company announced a twofer: First, they’re acquiring Klas, a tactical comms and edge computing company out of Dublin, pending regulatory approval. And second, they’re unveiling a new member of the Menace command, control, communications, and computing (C4) systems family: Menace-T. In a […]
Drone company DZYNE has officially delivered “multiple” of their Grasshopper expendable cargo drones to the US Air Force, as part of their collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the company told Tectonic in an exclusive release. “This milestone underscores … the critical role Grasshopper will play not only in contested logistics but also in […]
