Companies
General Dynamics Land Systems delivered its first physical XM30 Wolf prototype to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland in late August 2026. The milestone advances a head-to-head $45 billion competition against American Rheinmetall to replace the M2 Bradley.
Naval
The U.S. Navy awarded Castelion an $89,997,162 firm-fixed-price order to take Blackbeard to Early Operational Capability. The buy tests whether a Mach 5 strike weapon can be produced cheaply enough for the fleet to field it in numbers.
Aerospace
The Pentagon set an eye-popping $131.2 billion ceiling on Boeing's F-15 line through 2037, even as delivery delays officially breached the fighter's operational baseline and pushed full readiness to 2028.
Funding
Project Janus aims to shield major power-projection bases from domestic grid failure using commercial microreactors, but officials warned that private capital must carry the bulk of the cost.
Macro
Facing soaring cost-per-shot asymmetry, the military is funding a wave of clean-sheet interceptors and hypersonic strike weapons engineered from scratch for affordable mass.
Management
Joby Aviation is paying about $500 million to acquire Resonant Sciences, a Dayton defense shop that already books more than $100 million in annual revenue. The deal turns a decade of small Air Force pilots into a scaled, cleared defense franchise.
Aerospace
A 2023 GAO report found the F-35's overtasked cooling system is adding $38 billion in engine maintenance costs. Collins Aerospace just tested a candidate fix, but the program isn't expected to pick a solution or begin production until 2033.
Naval
Anduril spent tens of millions revamping a Seattle shipyard for a Navy autonomous-vessel program. The Navy canceled that program, and named Huntington Ingalls, Leidos, and five others to build the one that replaced it.
Funding
SpaceX won a $2.29 billion sole-source contract in May to build the backbone of the military's new orbital data network. In August, the Space Force awarded five competitors a combined $60 million and said it needs to avoid vendor lock-in.
Companies
Parsons has landed seven new contract awards and positions since August 11 across missile defense, space, cyber, and electronic warfare. Three weeks earlier, the company told investors its national security segment had posted a quarterly loss.
Policy and Budgets
The Pentagon named Fort Story, Virginia, as Golden Dome's first operational site. Gen. Michael Guetlein still will not say what sits there, how many sites follow, or which cost estimate holds.
Partnerships
Kratos and GE Aerospace's GEK800 received the F143-ZZ-100 type designation and a U.S. Air Force EMD contract as JASSM's second-source engine. Neither company disclosed a dollar value.