If you’re a Payload reader, you’ve probably heard of Interlune. Luckily for us, the space resources startup is kicking off work a little closer to home. On Wednesday, in an exclusive release to Tectonic, Interlune announced that they’ve scored a $1.25M AFWERX contract to increase the terrestrial supply of helium-3—a rare isotope of helium critical […]
The factory of the future is back, baby. Yesterday, hypersonic missile company Castelion announced that they’re breaking ground on a new, state-of-the-art facility in New Mexico that (at full capacity) will be able to churn out “thousands of Blackbeards [Castelion’s flagship hypersonic] a year,” Castelion COO and co-founder Sean Pitt told Tectonic. Pitt said that […]
It’s been (another) busy, busy week in defense tech, especially for everyone’s favorite globetrotting neo-prime. Over the past few days, Anduril has announced a new autonomous air vehicle (AAV) called Omen, its selection for the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System Maneuver (IBCS-M) program, a partnership with Hyundai Heavy Industries on autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), and […]
In case you missed it with, well, everything else that’s been going on, it’s been a pretty busy week in South Korea. On Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung committed to increasing defense spending next year to 66.3T won ($46B). Then, Hegseth popped by on a two-day visit to meet with his counterpart, Defense […]
Looks like Shield AI is getting serious about the whole CCA thing. Yesterday, the company announced that it’s teaming up with jet engine megalith GE Aerospace ($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 […]
Everything’s bigger in Texas, especially the explosions. On Monday, Aeon, an Austin-based smart missile startup, announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that it has successfully completed all-up live-fire tests of its Zeus missile platform for the US Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM) and the Army Applications Lab (AAL) ahead of schedule. Talk about […]
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 […]
In the near-future battlefield, and today in Ukraine, swarms of friendly drones will be deployed as fast as enemy ones come in. For counter-drone tech, knowing which ones to shoot down can be hard. On Wednesday, Allen Control Systems unveiled a solution to this conundrum: A cryptographically secure, radio-silent identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system that tells […]
