It’s a big day for partnerships in the defense tech world. On Thursday, white-hot military logistics startup Rune Technologies—fresh off a $24M Series A—announced a partnership with supply chain visualization company Altana to expand Rune’s defense sustainment software capabilities. Friendship really does make the world go round. Making unsexy sexy: Rune, led by Anduril alums […]
Break out the popcorn, y’all. Yesterday, the Army announced its second award for Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) prototyping—this time, a $26M 16-month OTA to a team led by Lockheed Martin. The super-prime and its team will deliver their prototype to the 25th Infantry Division. This comes a little over a month after the […]
Death, taxes, and the primes hopping on the drone hype train. On Friday, L3Harris Technologies announced a “new Counter-Unmanned Systems (C-UxS) initiative” to “overcome unmanned threats across the air, land and sea domains.” Welcome to the club. The company said the “new effort provides expanded and customized C-UxS offerings by combining existing solutions with other […]
One cat, two cat, Red Cat, Blue…Ops? (Sorry.) Earlier this week, aerial drone-maker Red Cat Holdings ($RCAT) announced the launch of a maritime division called Blue Ops, diving headfirst into the ever-growing unmanned surface vehicle (USV) space. Maritime autonomy, all the rage, et cetera, et cetera. Sky to sea: So far, Red Cat’s eyes have […]
Who said the primes don’t move fast enough? Sixteen months after they scored a contract to build an autonomous friend for fighter jets (technical term), General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) took flight on Wednesday. For now, GA has first-flight bragging rights, but Anduril—the other company selected for the CCA program—says it is close […]
Looks like we’re on a bit of a maritime kick today. This morning, unmanned surface vessel (USV) company Saildrone announced that its 65-foot Surveyor vessel has received full classification from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). Now, what does that mean for us non-seafaring laypeople? Basically, the company’s big-boy sailboat drone has been inspected and […]
We told you that energetics were having a moment. This morning, rocket motor startup Firehawk Aerospace announced that it has completed a successful flight test of its 3D-printed GMLRS-class analog hybrid rocket engine as part of its ongoing Phase III SBIR contract with the Army Applications Laboratory (AAL). According to Firehawk, the hybrid rocket system […]
The robots really are coming for us. This morning, Germany-based unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) company ARX Robotics unveiled its first combat-capable UGV: Combat Gereon. The company says that the mini, battle-hardened robot-tank was built in a “European-Ukrainian development campaign” and honed with direct feedback from Ukrainian users on the frontline. “[This] system extends the reach […]
Scaling production is hard. Luckily for UK-based unmanned surface vehicle (USV) startup Kraken Technology, they’ve just partnered with German shipbuilding big dog NVL to ramp up manufacturing of their speedboat drones at NVL’s Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg this year. Helps to have friends in high places. Go fast: Kraken’s roots are in manufacturing racing speed […]
Remember when we said everyone wanted a factory of the future? Well, looks like we were right. Yesterday, Alabama-based Performance Drone Works (PDW) announced the official opening of Drone Factory 01 in Huntsville, a “state-of-the-art” production facility that the company says will be able to churn out over 60,000 FPV drones a year. The 90,000 […]
