Partnerships
GM Defense turned the first PAC-3 MSE housing parts in 22 days, work aerospace shops often take months or years to finish. The run is the first timed test of Lockheed's bet that Detroit can unstick the Patriot interceptor line.
Companies
Skunk Works is building a fleet of five Vectis autonomous stealth drone prototypes with internal capital, testing an 80 percent touch labor reduction to challenge Anduril and General Atomics.
Policy and Budgets
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed the Space Force operates on-orbit space control weapons as the service pushes a $71.2 billion budget against a frozen continuing resolution.
Aerospace
The Navy has put Boeing's MQ-25A Stingray into low-rate production, a $562 million Lot 1 start that leaves Super Hornets doing tanker duty until 2029 to extend the carrier air wing's strike radius.
Naval
A new GAO report finds the Navy will spend $3.1 billion keeping 15 retired attack submarines manned and fueled because public and private dry docks have no room to defuel them. The same yards already burned $3.4 billion on active boats that sat idle for a decade.
Aerospace
The Army selected Lockheed Martin and a Boeing-Anduril team for Phase 2 of its Second Interceptor competition, aiming to fill a critical mid-tier missile gap and preserve strategic Patriot stockpiles.
Electronics
The U.S. Army awarded Northrop Grumman a $4.84 billion contract for Common Infrared Countermeasure systems through 2035, cementing a sole-source transition from pyrotechnic flares to continuous laser jamming across its combat helicopter fleet.
Aerospace
Covenant emerged from stealth with Anthem, a mid-six-figure cruise missile designed for serial production as Tomahawk and JASSM inventories have been burned down in Iran. The company is trying to fill the gap between affordable mass and strategic range before allied magazines define deterrence.
Aerospace
Lockheed Martin and L3Harris have locked in a seven-year propulsion deal to triple PAC-3 MSE interceptor output, pairing multiyear capital certainty with dual-source manufacturing to overcome a chronic missile bottleneck.
Naval
The Pentagon wants 1,000 Tomahawks a year to replenish spent stockpiles, but prime contractor Raytheon cannot scale output until General Dynamics delivers more titanium warhead cases from Alabama.
Funding
Israeli-founded Aitan is coming out of stealth with a $41 million round and a blunt argument: attritable drones are commodities, and the sovereign asset is the software that flies them together.
Funding
The Army locked a five-year, $862.8 million IDIQ for Northrop Grumman's M1156 Precision Guidance Kit, the $15,000 screw-in fuze that turns stock 155mm shells into GPS-corrected rounds. The next variants are built for jammed battlefields, and the line already belongs to one producer.