Defense One - Business

Treat operational feedback as a strategic resource, new paper argues

Jennifer Hlad — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:56:43 -0400

As the Pentagon overhauls its acquisition system, it should take lessons from recent and ongoing wars, a new report argues.

From Israel, the U.S. should learn that “operational feedback should be treated as a strategic resource.” writes Barak Seener, an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, in a report released Monday. And from Ukraine, the U.S. can learn “the strategic value of competition, decentralization, and commercial innovation.”

Additionally, Seener writes, “software-defined warfare requires software-defined acquisition.” In the future, acquisition models should “treat software as a continuously developing capability, rather than a completed product.”

These changes and more are necessary, he writes, because: “Future military advantage will belong to organizations that can learn, adapt, and integrate faster than their adversaries.”

Acknowledging the reforms the Pentagon began in 2025, Seener writes that the main challenge facing the American defense acquisition process “is not simply one of speed. It is the ability to align authority, responsibility, and operational outcomes within a single decision-making structure.”

Introducing portfolio acquisition executives is a good step, he writes, but “the effectiveness of the reform will ultimately depend upon the degree to which portfolio managers are able to exercise genuine authority over requirements, resources, capability trade-offs and program termination.”

In an interview, Seener pointed to the ways militiaries are using adaptation to outflank exquisite weaponry.

“We used to think that you needed very expensive platforms that took a decade to create, like the F-35, to create strategic impact on the battlefield,” he said. “But look what Ukraine is doing in Russia. Look what the Houthis are doing, just by deploying mass.”

“Technology is evolving much faster than traditional defense acquisition timelines,” he said, “so expensive platforms that take years to develop can leave capabilities outdated by a rapidly changing battlefield landscape before they are fielded.”

Instead of developing bespoke technologies from scratch, “the Pentagon can increase its flexibility by tapping into technologies already developed by the commercial sector—particularly AI, software, cloud computing, autonomy, sensors, and data analytics,” he said.

The need for further reform is clear, Seener said, when you look at how existing systems “have failed to make a strategic impact in Iran.

“You know, in the first couple of days, America and Israel together were able to decapitate the regime, eliminate their command and control, with this rapid tempo, this high velocity of strikes against a huge number of targets, which was unprecedented. And yet it made no strategic impact. Everybody was dazzled; they were awe-inspired at the impact it made…but look, the regime remains intact. Their missile capability remains intact. So this operational wowing effect that it has is not the same as having the strategic impact.”

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Defense Business Brief: Here comes the quantum boom; GDIT’s perspective; and Sec. 889

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 06:15:00 -0400

The benefits of quantum technology could hit the mainstream sooner than you think—at least that’s what one company is aiming for.

“We’re actually really hoping in the next year or two [to] release these as products that people can buy and integrate into their cybersecurity protocols,” said Mehdi Namazi, co-founder and chief science officer of the quantum networking company Qunnect. But the products aren’t “that futuristic.”

Quantum is usually discussed as being able to one day break encryption and help discover new drugs. But Qunnect is betting that commercial quantum technologies for telecommunications networks could be ready sooner rather than later, according to newly released research.

Several focus on authentication, including a quantum position verification process that allows you to verify the position and time of a transaction, providing a physical receipt, Namazi told Defense One ahead of the Quantum World Congress event outside of Washington, D.C.

That could unveil the true source of a phishing call that is pretending to be your bank, for example.

Another example is quantum channel protection, where “entanglement networks can supplement post-quantum encryption to perfectly protect and monitor the communication networks to make sure no one is eavesdropping, no one is harvesting the data,” he said. It also protects against redirecting traffic on the network.

Qunnect counts In-Q-Tel, an investment firm focused on intelligence and national security needs, as one of its backers.

Background: DARPA has previously explored entanglement networks through its Quantum Augmented Networks effort, but has recently become more vocal about it. Following a White House executive order, the Pentagon released its quantum strategy, which focuses on network modernization, such as integrating secure commercial products and using quantum-resistant devices. It also named 2030 as the deadline for all Pentagon systems to support post-quantum cryptography.

That method of using entangled photons or particles, known as quantum entanglement, can also aid in precise time synchronization, which could be used for future telecommunications networks, including 6G. Precision would drill down to one trillionth of a second, “which you usually need for financial transactions, defensive systems—places that you really, really care about the security and the accuracy of your network,” Namazi said.

But there are challenges, particularly in making sure the technology is compatible with existing telecommunications infrastructure.

“These are hardware-based technologies. So, as much as we build everything to be compatible with the telecommunications infrastructure—which they are—this still means that you do need to go and add devices to different locations,” Namazi said. “And when it [comes] to devices that you use for your cybersecurity, you usually want them to be manufactured [domestically]…in very large quantities, in form factors that make sense. That's definitely still a challenge.”

Welcome

You’ve reached the Defense Business Brief, where we dig into what the Pentagon buys, who they’re buying from, and why. Send along your tips, feedback, and song recommendations to lwilliams@defenseone.com. Check out the Defense Business Brief archive here, and tell your friends to subscribe!

Bigs v. littles: quantum edition. Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Gilliland, president of GDIT, onstage at NDIA’s Women in Defense conference. When I asked her how GDIT was navigating a changing dense industrial base with startups getting more interest, in some cases, than primes, she said: “It is our job to go out and find these companies and to show them how we can bring them to the mission.”

Gilliland, who received a “Service to the Flag” award at the event, named the quantum company IonQ as an example.
“These are companies with great ideas. A lot of times they have no certification or accreditation, but they have really great ideas,” she said. “They have a lab at the University of Maryland…They have a big clock in there that’s ticking down to when they think Q-Day is,” the day quantum technology would be able to crack the encryption protecting some of the world’s most secure systems.
“They’re making great progress. And it is our job to bring the big brains that are in this quantum company to bear on programs.”
That includes an intelligence contract in which GDIT is using quantum computing to look through imagery and “detect the tiniest of changes…so we can see what the enemy is doing in ways that conventional computers can’t today,” she said.

Remember the Huawei ban? The Pentagon and General Services developed processes and tools to comply with Section 889 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, including a search function for contracting officers to find out how companies “represent their compliance,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a report released Tuesday. But they don’t routinely share those insights with the rest of the federal government.

“GSA and DOD do not broadly share their insights from implementing Section 889 prohibitions with other government agencies,” the report states. “For example, based on its experience with Section 889 prohibitions, GSA has plans to expand its use of customs data to identify the origin of goods, which GAO previously reported is difficult to do. By sharing information about their experience with current prohibitions, GSA and DOD could help other agencies address additional upcoming statutory prohibitions, such as on semiconductors. Sharing information could also help improve compliance.”
The GAO issued four recommendations, two for DOD: to share “subsidiary and affiliate information it collects with relevant federal agencies,” including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and coordinate with federal agencies on Sec. 889 implementation.

Making moves + other news

AEVEX has a new jet-powered drone called Scepter.
Holland & Knight added Ike Blanton to its national security team. He previously led global investment and economic security out of the Pentagon’s acquisition and sustainment office.
John Roche, Accenture’s managing director for defense, joined the Professional Services Council’s board.
The Space Force awarded Impulse Space a $28 million contract for space domain awareness.
BAE Systems delivered two prototype combat vehicles to the Army. The “Infantry Fighting Vehicles” are based on the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle chassis and are designed to combat drone threats.
The Special Competitive Studies Project released its tech scorecard on biotechnology and the U.S. competition with China.

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Defense Business Brief: Dispatch from AFA’s Air, Space, & Cyber 2026

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 15:58:47 -0400

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—The Air Force Test Center is prepared to keep up with the Pentagon’s calls to buy, develop, test, and field technology quickly—but safety remains the top priority, the center’s commander said.

“We always want to proceed safely forward. The work that we do, as I've noted, is, can be dangerous. So we don't want to take risks that are unnecessary and unsafe. So that's always something that we're on the lookout for,” Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, who leads the Air Force Test Center, told reporters during this week’s Air, Space & Cyber conference hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association.

Some context: Massaro’s comments come just three months after eight airmen died during a test flight of Boeing’s B-52 Stratofortress at Edwards Air Force Base in California. They also come nearly a year after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for sweeping acquisition reform, which includes “being open to buying the 85 percent solution” while achieving the more perfect solution over time. Separately, the Pentagon has slashed staff and reorganized its weapons testing organization, which raised oversight concerns, according to a Government Accountability Office report released earlier this year.

“There's a lot of capabilities out there today that might not be—from a technology perspective—exactly what it looks like in our minds at the end state. But it's at least the same, if not better, than what might be out there today,” Massaro said. “So there's a risk calculus there from an operational and acquisition risk when you do your cost schedule performance and then overlay that on the effectiveness and employability for the combatant and for the operational warfighter.”

The Air Force is currently testing system upgrades for the B-52, one of the service’s oldest aircraft, that could keep it operational through the 2050s.

The center works with program acquisition executives and operators to “understand where those balances are, and design our test programs to accommodate for more rapid” testing and integration, Massaro said.

“A clear example was our rapid integration of Falco, the [Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System], on the F-15E. Our people, processes, and test assets were postured to respond through integrated developmental and operational testing,” he said.

“The Falco was a little bit over a year ago…We had F-15E's. We had the rockets. We just had never connected them together in that way. So we had one technical risk to really get through, and [it] allowed us to go very quickly. So that's balancing the risk of the programmatic side when an operational warfighter needs it really quick, and understanding where you can make those trades. And with safety always as a backdrop.”

Welcome

Here come the MMAs. The Air Force wants Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMAs, to replace General Atomics’ storied MQ-9 Reaper drone, Troy Meink, the service’s secretary announced earlier this week. It’s a call that Swarm Aero has been waiting for—and building toward for the past four years. On Monday, the company unveiled its autonomous Gamera aircraft, a long-range strike aircraft that boasts seven connection points for payloads like missiles and sensors. The UAS is powered by the company’s Legion autonomy software.

“We thought there would be a need that ultimately…to carry a very large payload like the LRASM that we see here, a long distance, and do so as cost effectively as possible,” Peter Kalogiannis, Swarm Aero’s CEO, told Defense One. “The $10 million listed in the solicitation, that really enables those volumes. And again, we've designed from the very beginning for those volumes, and quite frankly, for that price point, we're very very competitive against them.
The company is building “several” prototypes in its Oxnard, California, facility and expects the first flight by the end of 2027.
“This is something that makes the rest of the force—the bombers, the fighters, the B-21s, the F-47s—it makes them more lethal and more survivable. By being able to take some of the mission sets that they would otherwise potentially have to do, and freeing them up where they can be most effective,” Oliver Palmer, the company’s co-founder, told Defense One.
And while it’s early, the company is looking forward to what the Air Force has in store and the innovation it could spark.
“Frankly, we need competition in large aircraft production. There has historically been a monopoly structure of awarding programs that are intended to be around for 20-, 30-plus years,” Palmer said. “There have been a lot of really great reasons to do that, but increasingly we need competition because the cycle of technology competition with adversaries like China and others is changing so fast…and the model has to change. They started that with CCA. It sounds like they're gonna do that again with MMA. We absolutely welcome this.”

AI integration station. The technology has had a big week in national security, so it’s only natural that the topic surfaced in chatter throughout the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.

The Space Force’s newly appointed top buyer, Erich Hernandez-Baquero, said the military has to “lean in” to the technology.
- “We cannot afford to lose this race for artificial intelligence,” he said. “The answer is not to shy away from the technology, but to lean into it, understand it, and apply the right guardrails in place. And I think those AI experts have approaches for how to ensure those guardrails are in play, and we need to continue to support development of those guardrails in a way that supports our space missions.”
The Air Force Test Center is also keen to collaborate with the tech industry, and now has a dedicated senior leader role for AI.
- “We have an artificial intelligence expert with us on staff now at the Air Force Test Center. So we are stepping into that world. We are looking to build and maintain those partnerships with tech in that space,” AFTC’s Massaro said.
Air Mobility Command wants a more data-link connected fleet, which could allow for some AI use.
- “The ability for air crews to communicate, to coordinate tanker orbits and rendezvous, to pass threat information, to save lives and save aircraft has been everything we expected it to be,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, who leads the command, told reporters.
- The command is “well down the path” of having a quarter of its fleet data-link connected despite missing its original 2025 goal. But the strategy has “evolved.” The service is pursuing MAF NEXUS and “the goal is to have this on all mobility aircraft, whether they're future builds and it's incorporated, or it's an add-on capability to existing aircraft.”
- The system “brings edge compute, the ability to then deploy AI and much more computing horsepower forward on the aircraft, and it does network with the rest of the joint force and the Air Force's battle management system.”

One last, fun exercise: If you Google “Air Force MMA” you’re definitely going to get UFC-type content.

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Lockheed’s Skunk Works plans to build four more of its multirole combat drones

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Skunk Works, Lockheed Martin’s secretive research arm, plans to build four more of its experimental, multipurpose drones as the firm attempts to sell its futuristic platform to the U.S. military.

Last year, Skunk Works unveiled Vectis—a concept for a group 5 drone that’s capable of a wide range of missions. Now, on the first day of the Air & Space Force Association’s defense conference near Washington, D.C., company officials announced they’re making significant progress on the prototype and are already planning to expand the fleet for more tests.

“We are moving forward with a plan to build an additional four vehicles, bringing a total of five to include the original prototype,” said Ron Fehlen, Skunk Works’ vice president and general manager. “Development work on those additional aircraft is already underway, and we'll have more specifics to share soon.”

Company officials shared new images of the Skunk Works combat drone with reporters ahead of this week’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference. Vectis will be roughly 34 feet long and have a 38-foot wingspan, and will feature a submerged engine inlet and a tail-less body to reduce drag and mission flexibility,” Fehlen said. While Lockheed was eager to talk about the aircraft’s design, the Skunk Works vice president was tight-lipped about who the specific customer for the new aircraft could be, and didn’t provide details on the weapons loadout, propulsion system, or estimated cost of the platform. The Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy are all aiming to field collaborative combat aircraft.

“From an affordability standpoint, which we're always looking at, and, of course, are targeting to be the CCA competitive price. So we're very cognizant of it and make trades associated with that, Fehlen said. “It's obviously, I think, focused more on the CCA side of the house, and obviously the price points that are highly relevant in that regime.”

Fehlen said the company remains on track to fly Vectis by “the end of 2027.” He said Skunk Works feels confident in that timeline, due in part, to the use of digital designs and “minimal tooling determinant assembly”—which the Skunk Works vice president likened to ready-to-assemble furniture with pre-drilled holes.

“It's a technique that really enables an increased level of affordability and speed through really reducing the amount of touch labor required and increasing the first pass yield,” Fehlen said. “We've seen in many cases an 80 percent reduction in labor hours to build up the aircraft itself.”

While Fehlen wouldn’t specify one specific U.S. program or customer Vectis is geared toward, he did say it could work with any of Lockheed Martin’s fighter jets, which are also flown by other nation’s militaries.

“I'll point to the fact that we have a long history in crewed tactical systems that, you know, Vectus is going to need to integrate with, in addition to other fighter aircraft that are produced around the world,” Fehlen said. “So, from our perspective, this is in line with our heritage and what we're producing today and delivering to the field. It has incredible capability, and now we're going to be able to add this to it.”

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Defense Business Brief: AI manufacturing; Skilled trades; Arms transfer oversight

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 02:31:22 -0400

Could AI- and robot-made missile components and airframes be the future of aerospace manufacturing? That’s the bet, Machina Labs CEO Edward Mehr said.

The Los Angeles-based company plans to break ground on its third manufacturing facility this year, Mehr told Defense One at the Space and Missile Defense Conference last month.

That facility, which hasn’t been named yet, is expected to be up to 250,000 square feet—more than double the size of Machina Labs’ two existing facilities.

The company builds large metal structures like airframes and drone bodies using AI and robotics with less specialized tooling and equipment.

“If you think about traditional metal structure manufacturers in defense, they have to go build a very custom factory for every product they want to deploy. There [are] facilitization costs that go for each product and then there's a lead time associated with that. For us, the same factory that makes, let's say, [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile] fuel tanks, can switch and make UAV airframes.”

Last year, Machina Labs raised $124 million in a Series C round, much of which will be used for that third facility: “This year—and next—is about focus, about scale,” he said.

The company, which has Toyota, Nvidia, and Lockheed Martin as investors, plans to significantly increase production of its manufacturing system, RoboCraftsman.

“Today, we manufacture five of these manufacturing systems a year. We're ramping that up,” he said.

Several of those systems are slated to outfit Machina Labs’ upcoming facility, which will produce cruise missile products. The company has not yet announced where it will be located.

“As long as you have a ground that can hold the system, they can be shipped to it, they open up, you connect them to power, and within the same day, they self-calibrate and start manufacturing,” Mehr said.

Welcome

Help needed: Natsec’s skilled trade crisis. For more than a generation, the rhetoric and overall advice for young adults mulling their future was to go to college, get a four-year degree, maybe learn to code, and land an office job—or at least one that is secure and not too dangerous. But that societal rhetoric may have helped fuel a dearth of skilled trade and craft workers, lawmakers and government officials argued during a pre-Labor Day hearing.

“We assume that critical manufacturing inputs such as minerals, sub tier suppliers, [and] skilled labor will always be available. This assumption is false,” Rep. Ken Calvert, who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said during opening remarks for a Sept. 4 field hearing on the industrial base. “According to the American Welding Society, approximately 20 percent of the welding force are approaching retirement and in 2025 they estimated the need for 320,000 new welders by 2029. These estimates are prior to the data center boom, which relies heavily on welders and fabrication.”
The Pentagon’s head of industrial base policy Michael Cadenazzi echoed those sentiments in written testimony:
- “Decades of government policy and societal pressure have driven millions of talented young Americans towards degrees which haven’t delivered the benefits they were promised and have left defense manufacturers with few skilled workers waiting in the wings. There are as many as 400,000 unfilled skilled trades jobs in the DIB today, and that number could grow to 2.5 million by 2030.”
Cadenazzi also highlighted the Pentagon’s award of a $10 million grant to BuildFreedom.us, which aims to bolster the skilled workforce by linking jobseekers with scholarships, apprenticeship programs, and “AI-proof jobs”.
- “We’ve now rolled out Build Freedom in three states, with plans to expand the program nationwide. This national awareness will drive individuals to our new Buildfreedom.US website, a one-stop shop where their interest can be converted into scholarships, training, credentials, and job opportunities,” he said of the effort, which was launched in partnership with the National Labor Exchange, Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” reality TV fame, and his mikeroweWORKS Foundation.
- That $10 million grant will pay for more than 9,000 scholarships, Cadenazzi said.

Improving oversight of mishandled defense articles abroad. When the U.S. provides security assistance, the State Department is in charge of investigating incidents in which U.S. allies and partners fail to properly secure or transfer defense articles—from weapons to components or technical data. But the department's “investigations, documentation and reporting on potential violations were inconsistent,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a letter that was publicly released on Sept. 8.

The watchdog agency made those concerns, which appeared in a 2025 report, a “high priority” issue for the State Department.
“We recommended [the State Department] document the status and findings of its investigations and develop guidance for determining when to report an incident to Congress. Doing so could inform congressional oversight of future assistance,” the letter states.

Making moves + other news

The Army picked Boeing and Anduril for its Integrated Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2 Second Interceptor.
Allen Control Systems is beefing up its manufacturing capacity with a new 191,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. The facility will churn out the company’s signature robotic turret.
Kongsberg selected Echodyne to provide radars for its counter-UAS system.
Former NGA Director Frank Whitworth is now president of Satellogic, a geospatial data company. Whitworth will lead the company’s operations and direct strategy for its defense and intelligence products.
The Navy and MARTAC demonstrated refueling of autonomous vessels at sea.
Ex-Pentagon weapons buyer Ellen Lord joined Chariot Defense’s advisory board with two former Army generals, James Rainey, who led Army Futures Command, and Samuel Peterson, the Army’s former buyer for combat support and sustainment portfolio. Defense investor Stephen Rodriguez also joined the board.

A final stray thought: BuildFreedom.us rings very similar to BuildSubmarines.com. Coincidence? Perhaps.

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Back to life: How Shield AI’s future unmanned fighter made decades-old tech new again

Lauren C. Williams — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:00:00 -0400

LYNN, Mass.—Three decades ago, GE Aerospace tested a technology that could’ve made the F-16 more agile. It worked, but was never fielded. Instead, it sat in a box in a warehouse—until defense tech startup Shield AI called.

“They reached out to us and said…‘Do you still have that capability? And the truth is, we hadn't fielded it. After we did the demonstration, it basically went into storage,” said Steve “Doogie” Russell, VP and general manager of GE’s Edison Works. “And the solution that we've offered to Shield on that is an F110 engine with a nozzle in the back that we call the axisymmetric vectoring exhaust nozzle, or AVEN.”

Not having to start from scratch on the technology was critical for saving time and speeding up flight testing for its collaborative combat aircraft, X-BAT, an autonomous fighter jet designed to take off and land vertically, Shiva Vallabhaneni, senior propulsion engineer for Shield AI, told Defense One.

“X-BAT always needed to have a thrust vector controlled capability to do vertical flight,” Vallabhaneni. “So we really went out and said…where can we get one? Is there technology that already exists?”

The aircraft “needs to be able to move quickly…in any direction,” GE’s Russell told reporters during a visit to the company’s factory here in Lynn.

That comes with a special set of propulsion requirements, so GE paired its 30-year-old AVEN nozzle with its F110 engine found in the F-16 fighter jet for the X-BAT.

The aircraft needs a high-thrust propulsion system “because you've got to be able to have that aircraft take off vertically and then, when it comes back, land at high thrust mode. It also needs to have really good gas mileages. So [thrust-specific fuel consumption], once it's up and away, needs to be able to hit the range requirements that they're trying to get,” Russell said.

And, he said, when it lands, it needs a nozzle “on the back that can move around to balance the aircraft as it's coming in to maneuver into position to dock back up. That's a pretty significant propulsion challenge and pretty unique.”

In under a year, the companies dusted off the AVEN nozzle, refurbished the original hardware, completely rewrote the software code, and have been testing it with the engine.

The hardware was in very good condition, and AVEN One, which is being used for the X-BAT prototype, has “close to 100 percent of the same hardware that was flown from the 90s,” Vallabhaneni said. “That was the biggest key unlock for getting us to an X-BAT prototype flight test this year—100 percent. In some ways, building that thrust vector control nozzle, verifying its technology, and doing it at the speed that we needed to is probably harder than getting an engine.”

The companies recently completed testing the engine integrated with the full AVEN nozzle at GE Aerospace’s test facility in Peebles, Ohio.

Now, the goal is to complete a tethered vertical flight test of the aircraft by the end of the year, to demonstrate that it can hover and remain stable.

Through data collected during testing, engineers can create models that will help develop vertical flight control laws, Vallabhaneni said.

During the planned test, the prototype aircraft will hang from a 180-foot crane to minimize risk. The test will be successful if slack in the tether is created during the hover.

“Shield AI—much like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, all of these other new space companies—the mindset is: be hardware rich, take risks because the faster we get to test, the faster we can learn what the real problems are. And so the tether gives peace of mind that we're buying off risk, but we're not buying off risk irresponsibly,” Vallabhaneni said.

But the AVEN nozzle won’t just be in the prototype—Shield AI plans to make more and eventually tweak the technology along the way. Building additional AVEN nozzles that keep the legacy design will help increase testing effort. And any future changes will likely focus on performance, Vallabhaneni said.

“Lighter, faster, more performance, right? Those are the things that we're going to go and chase and achieve on the future version of AVEN. So the journey doesn't stop here. This is the starting point, and it's really great that GE gave us a pretty great starting point back in the '90s,” he said.

“AVEN sat on the shelf for 30 years. I was born in Cincinnati, so I drive by the hospital I was born in every time I'm at GE—and…AVEN was built before I was born. So for me, it's very important to recognize all of the people who went and did that and built that within a year…We are giving those people their flowers and being able to pay that forward.”

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White House pressure for US firms to skip French space summit is ‘unfortunate,’ insiders say

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:08:13 -0400

A White House official warned U.S. space companies last week that if they attend an upcoming international summit in France, it might appear they’re supporting policies that go against their own country’s interests. Space advocates say the move discourages needed cooperation.

An industry insider told Defense One that Charles Powell, the assistant director for space and spectrum in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology policy, said in a call on Aug. 27 that space companies that attend next week’s International Space Summit in France “might be used as a prop to support policies counter to U.S. interests.” Politico, citing industry and Congressional sources, first reported the news on Thursday, and detailed that SpaceX, Stoke Space, K2 Space and Astra, which compete for civil and military space contracts, were among the companies on the call.

“This is all very unfortunate because France is a country we should be doing more space cooperation with, not less,” the industry insider said.

Space policy experts said the White House warning doesn’t make much sense because the U.S. government is attending the summit, France is a longtime NATO ally, and it is also investing in growing its military space capabilities. More than 120 countries are scheduled to attend next week’s summit in France, according to a government website.

White House spokespeople did not confirm whether Powell gave the warning and did not respond when asked for the rationale behind the call with U.S. space companies.

“The Trump administration continues to collaborate with allies and partners in space,” an Office of Science and Technology policy official told Defense One in a statement. “We look forward to productive conversations at the Space Summit on key priorities including science missions, exploration programs, and space security.”

SpaceX and Blue Origin are among the companies no longer attending the summit, French newspaper LeMonde reported.

"It's hard not to link it to the rumours of pressure," a ministry spokesperson told Agence France-Presse, LeMonde reported. "We obviously want to continue working with our US partners and allies, even though strategic about-turns and political pressures sometimes make the task needlessly complex," the spokesperson added.

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nearly $5 billion increase in military space spending. Victoria Samson, the Secure World Foundation’s chief director of space security and stability, told Defense One that U.S. companies want to get in on that investment.

“I think it's a head-scratching decision, given that OSTP, State, Commerce, and NASA are all attending. Also given the huge recent investments by France and Germany in their military space capabilities, you would think U.S. companies would be falling over themselves to get in front of European decision makers,” Samson, who is also attending the summit, said. “This just reads like another short-sighted effort by the Trump administration to stir the pot with long-time European allies.”

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Defense Business Brief: Takeaways from America’s first jet engine test site

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:24:20 -0400

LYNN, Mass.—Rosie the robot and her automated compatriot Thomas are the stars of GE Aerospace’s automated manufacturing line at the company’s factory here. Decked in yellow, the towering machines are reminiscent of the Transformer Bumblebee’s dislocated arms. They move in concert seamlessly to collect tools, machine parts, and assemble components for the T700, which are found in Boeing’s Apache and Sikorsky’s Black Hawks, and, in the future,T408 engines for the Marine Corps’ CH-53-K King Stallion.

It’s part of a multiyear $100 million investment in the plant, which is hyperfocused on upgrades—from machines to workflows—to make more engines and deliver them faster.

“This was historically a bottleneck for our businesses,” Dan Martin, who manages manufacturing engineering and leads a team charged with integrating robotics and automation inLynn plant, said of the piece of the business that makes rotating parts, like cooling plates. “We had quality issues here. We had capacity issues here. The robotics piece now comes online, and these lines are no longer constrained for us.”

That need to go fast will be key once the military starts putting in high-volume orders for collaborative combat aircraft, or robot wingmen for fighter jets.

“We're designing from the very beginning to meet the right production,” starting with small engines, Amy Gowder, GE Aerospace's president and CEO for its defense and systems division, told reporters Monday. For example, “we did a seven-way exercise, and we're like, ‘no, we need a tack time of 100 seconds for each [screw], not an hour and a half,” for 70 screws.

In addition to changing techniques and design practices, Gowder said the company is looking for suppliers that are “used to the high volumes we need.”

For the F404/F414 engine, which is found in the F/A-18, “we're trying to move to a different supply base that has different commercial off-the-shelf type standards that have operated at this volume,” she said. “And when we tell them we want to go from one engine a month to 20 engines a month in like six months or a year, that doesn't phase them because they're used to handling the volumes. Only when you get to like 100 engines a month do they start to say, ‘hey, I might need some some investments or capacity to meet that.’”

GE is also conducting “producibility reviews” as it brings on suppliers, she said.

“So we think we designed it correctly. We think we've chosen the right types of suppliers that have the capacity and processes we need, but as they actually get the drawing and figure out how they're going to make it for the first time, we're there with them [to review] other changes before we lock in that final design.”

Welcome

Next up: Hypersonic testing. The Pentagon’s innovation arm tapped GE Aerospace to develop a hypersonic test bed as part of the Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities, or HyCAT, program. The award follows one for a prototype in 2023. The first flight is targeted for 2028.

“This is a significant milestone for our hypersonics team,” where “we're the prime, but we're also providing a dual-mode ramjet,” which can make the vehicle go faster and further, while “working with a number of other platforms to provide an all-up round to support this high-cadence hypersonic testing capability,” Steve “Doogie” Russell, VP and general manager of GE’s Edison Works, told reporters.
But the company isn’t interested in developing a weapons system, Russell said.
“This is a case where we do have the ability to be the full integrator for this test bed project, but we're really focused on being a propulsion solution provider across this spectrum of activity. Same thing with the low-cost small-engine side of things.”
The engine-maker is working with several other companies, but declined to name them or discuss product ranges.
GE Aerospace also plans to use the solution to test other payloads, including engine upgrades, said Dean Modroukas, general manager of hypersonics.
“The best way to assess hypersonic systems is to make sure that you've got plenty of time in an operating mode that's relevant for things like thermal equilibrium, maneuverability,” Modroukas said. “HyCat is the second step of what we're doing to develop a test bed and test capability that allows us to bring our engines into flight. So we're always looking forward in terms of ways that we can learn quickly and through testing both on the ground, but end of the day, in a relevant environment, is [that] you want to be in the air.”

One more engine-related thing: The Navy certified Rolls-Royce’s mtu series 4000 and 2000 marine engines to power autonomous surface vessels.

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Defense Business Brief: A day at DIBX 2026 in Philadelphia

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:36:43 -0400

PHILADELPHIA—The Trump administration is dialed in on increasing domestic production of critical minerals needed for military weapons. But getting private investment in the industry is tough because of how long it can take for companies to start making money.

“We all know the critical minerals issue is front and center. It's the president's maybe No. 1 issue for the defense industrial base and for national security—and it takes a lot,” Kyle Bass, who leads Rochefort Asset Management, said during the Defense Industrial Base Accelerator conference here Wednesday. “The way that we have looked at it—and the reason we haven't done any critical mineral deals yet, and we've looked at a bunch of them—is that duration mismatch,” when the timeline to access liquid capital is constrained.

The firm has put about $450 million in the past 18 months into “companies that have products, customers, and some revenue,” Bass said. “They're right in that acceleration phase where they're still losing money, typically, but their revenues are growing and they're still staffing. That's where we plug in and help catalyze their growth.”

But private investment can follow once the government puts in capital—or sends a strong demand signal. A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report looked at how publicly traded companies increased their capital expenditures 31 percent in the second quarter year-over-year after signing long-term framework agreements with the government.

And the Pentagon has made several investments in critical minerals companies in recent years.

For example, last year, the Pentagon took a 40 percent stake in Korea Zinc as part of a $7.4 billion move to build a new critical mineral processing plant in Tennessee, part of a broader push to reduce U.S. foreign dependency on rare earth and critical minerals. That deal also included private investments.

“That capital was asked to come in by the offtakers and the U.S. government because of that duration mismatch, it's too long,” Bass said.

The Pentagon has about $5 billion in reconciliation funds to invest in critical mineral supply chains through fiscal year 2029. And there’s no shortage of domestic critical minerals companies, but they’re destabilized by China’s much-cheaper market, Michael Cadenazzi, the Pentagon’s head of industrial base policy, said while onstage with Bass.

“In putting our RFIs out constantly, we find there are lots and lots of companies that are in the space. They're just undercapitalized because people struggle with a market where our No. 1 strategic competitor undercuts us,” he said.

Bass agreed and said “predictability”, such as with orders or pricing, will be key to getting more private capital investment in critical minerals.

“We have plenty of critical minerals in North America. We just need to build big processing facilities. And that Korea Zinc facility in Tennessee is going to be huge—but it won't be operational for another four years, or five years,” he said. “So that, again, that mismatch is the hard part because…it's a race at the moment, and we have to win that race.”

Welcome

Hello from the city of brotherly love—and defense industry reinvigoration! This week, the Pentagon’s industrial policy shop kicked off its first Defense Industrial Base Accelerator event in Philadelphia’s city center. It was an easy Acela ride up for day two of a three-day conference where attendees seemed cheery! Eager to mingle and make new connections. I had great impromptu conversations about manufacturing—specifically forging!—quantum sensors, computing, and the changing dialogue around the field.

Besides the vibes, here were my key takeaways:

Critical minerals was a major theme.
The event drew about 2,500 registered attendees. And the sessions were packed, some with standing room only.
This was not a heavily government attended event—fewer than 400 registrants were from the government.
Attendees hailed from the aerospace and defense industries, consulting, engineering, software, manufacturing, and venture capital.
Cadenazzi told Defense One the aim was to “unify” all of the separate industry policy efforts into a singular “voice.” And they hope to do it again.

An easy button for financial documentation? The Energy Department is spearheading a pilot program that aims to streamline how businesses looking for financing submit their data.

“From the financing perspective, one of the things we struggle with is you have borrowers, U.S. businesses, who are going to multiple agencies and sort of shopping their materials because they don't know a better front door,” Asad Akram, managing director of the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital, said during a panel at the DIBX event.
“So one of the things that DOE has started piloting—that's not fully live yet—is essentially the college common app version of financing.” The tool could cut down on red tape for businesses that want to work with the government.
“Roughly all the financing agencies are looking for the same info…So we're trying to make it better for borrowers, where they can upload it once all of us can have access to it, and then work off of that versus them having to repeat their pitch 12 times across DC.”

And one last DIBX thing: The Pentagon awarded six out of nine companies a total of around $25 million during Wednesday’s event. Several tackle critical mineral harvesting and processing—5N+ Semiconductors, $7.3 million, Graystone Resources, $6.75 million, and Kunin Technologies, $1.9 million. Two winners immediately stood out: Senra Systems, $4.4 million, with their wire harness manufacturing in a box technology, and Neya Systems’ autonomous fuel transport offering that aims to use unmanned ground and maritime vehicles from AM General and Textron, respectively. Their award was for $5.9 million.

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Army selects 5 companies to build nuclear microreactors on bases, under new $2 billion deal

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Army officials have selected five firms to build nuclear microreactors at U.S. military bases as a bid to create energy independence, though the nation still relies heavily on imported enriched uranium for such projects.

The service and the Defense Innovation Unit unveiled the initiative, dubbed “Project Janus,” at last year’s Association of the U.S. Army Conference in Washington, D.C. Now, officials are awarding up to $2.2 billion to the pool of five companies through a milestone-based Other Transaction Authority contract with fixed-price milestones to build out their microreactor technology on Army bases. Those firms and bases, announced on Wednesday, are:

Antares Nuclear, Inc. – Fort Bragg, North Carolina
BWXT Advanced Technologies, LLC – Fort Campbell, Kentucky
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems – Fort Hood, Texas
Radiant Industries, Inc. – Fort Benning, Georgia
Westinghouse Government Services – Fort Drum, New York

“We now know that our domestic electric grid is potentially at risk in a conflict. We also know that we will not necessarily be able to move fossil fuels easily wherever we need them to go,” said Jeff Waksman, the Army’s principal deputy assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment. “Right now, all critical infrastructure that the Army has is backed up by some form of liquid fossil fuel, primarily diesel. So that makes nuclear energy just a natural game changer for the Army.”

Janus project officials said with additional private investment from the firms, they anticipate up to 20 microreactors across the bases. The service competition paves the way for a program of record to deliver a small nuclear powerplant to an Army installation by 2028. Currently, the U.S. doesn’t have operational nuclear microreactors, and the country only enriches a very small percentage of the world’s uranium supply. Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration efforts to grow the supply and produce high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, are still underway. However, service officials remain optimistic the supply chain problems will not set back their microreactor plans.

“We expect sufficient prioritization to ensure that we have the uranium that we need for our fastest moving reactors,” Waksman said, acknowledging that the microreactor effort is “probably going to push beyond what our supplies are as a nation.”

“This is really an all-of-government effort. We are tied in very closely with the folks at DOE and NNSA, trying to stand up new enrichment capability, and we will do what we can to deliver what we need through stockpile, and then to hopefully have fresh enrichment capable of delivering some of the HALEU for the later reactors in this program.”

In November, the Army named nine bases as finalists for the microreactors, but excluded Fort Wainwright, Alaska; Holston Army Ammunition Plant, Tennessee; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; from the final five.

Waksman said it was a “matching process” between the firms and the sites, and some contractors prefer to work in certain areas due to their relationships with utility companies near the bases they were paired up with. While one of the goals of the Janus Project is to cut down on energy supply chain issues for U.S. bases overseas, planners said they want to prove the technology can work stateside first.

“The intent here is to choose the lowest hanging fruit, we want to choose sites that we think are going to be the cheapest and fastest to deploy and the easiest,” Waksman said. “This is already very difficult. There's a reason no one has actually built a fully operational commercial nuclear microreactor before, so we don't want to make this harder on ourselves by trying to deliver this to some island or some foreign country. We want to demonstrate that we can do this here in the 50 U.S. states, and then if this is a success, then we can talk about possibly deploying somewhere else in the future.”

Project Janus is not the first military microreactor initiative. The Army is taking lessons from Project Pele, the Defense Department’s mobile reactor project, and based the contracting mechanism off of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

The Army’s selection of firms also follows an Air Force initiative to build a nuclear microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks, Alaska. Waksman said the Army should have an announcement in the “not too distant future” about how the services are working together on those projects.

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New contract aims to keep Space Force’s multi-billion-dollar projects on budget

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 04:55:16 -0400

As the Space Force takes on new, multi-billion-dollar national security programs, the service has awarded a new contract to keep those projects on track and on budget, Defense One has learned.

The service’s Space Systems Integration Office awarded Integrate, a Seattle-based firm, a multi-million dollar contract for its AI-enabled project management program. Last year, the company netted a $25 million contract with the Space Force’s Mission Manifest Office to manage the service major multi-payload launch operation project. Now, as the service embarks on massive programs such as building the Space Data Network and the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator, the service is expanding its use of the company’s software to help keep program managers on the right track.

“SSIO serves as the central nervous system for the Space Force and the singular integrator

across the majority of the national security space enterprise,” Integrate told Defense One. “To maintain the U.S. advantage in space, the office is actively pursuing technological advancements to ensure programs are executed within cost and schedule constraints, and to provide leaders with real-time visibility into the entire Space Force portfolio.”

The Space Systems Integration Office, which is within Space Systems Command and oversees its acquisitions programs, has a growing list of national security projects. So far, seven of the nine newly-established Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executives are using the program, with the others to be onboarded in the near future. The service’s $71.3 billion budget request this year, if passed, would mark the largest percentage increase for any military branch since 1952, according to the Aerospace Corporation. Service leaders say the new program is necessary to keep everything on the right track.

“As the speed of acquisition becomes increasingly critical to the success of our programs, the

Space Force is prioritizing technologies that equip our leaders with more timely, data-driven

decision-making capabilities,” Helen Ying, the Space Force’s system of systems engineering lead, said in a statement. “Integrate’s project management platform strengthens our capacity to visualize the minute details and track broader objectives within the Space Force’s programs.”

The existing—and antiquated—project management system can lead to mismanagement, miscommunication, and missed deadlines, the company said.

“They might get a hand-drawn PowerPoint with triangles on it sent over in an email or a table in an email with Gantt bars colored in, literally to show this is happening in September and this is happening in August. They don't have any granularity. It's like the minimum that meets the contract requirements in some cases,” John Conafay, Integrate’s CEO, said in an interview. “The most advanced is Microsoft Project Server, which, Microsoft Project was released the same year as Tetris.”

Conafay said his program differs from the current workflow dominated by sending emails and downloading files, and instead offers a clear single schedule that is modified in real-time and across multiple organization levels and classification levels to easily manage sprawling national security work.

Integrate’s contract with the Space Systems Integration Office comes as one of the Trump administration’s major programs, the Golden Dome missile defense shield, is facing budgetary headwinds. Gen. Michael Guetlein, the program's direct reporting program manager, warned attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, this month that if Congress doesn’t sort crucial supplementary funding, the program will be in dire straits.

Golden Dome is not a Space Force program, but the service is helping develop key technology for the architecture. Conafay said Integrate’s system helps in budget-controlled environments to ensure "things are done on time and within budget” and holds contractors accountable. He said the service’s adoption of an upgraded project management system shows they’re taking those budget constraints seriously.

“It shows an incredible amount of responsibility to the taxpayer to use a software that can fundamentally modernize something that hasn't been since 1984,” Conafay said.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated which organization wrote about the the service’s budget request. It was the Aerospace Corporation.

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There’s no shortcut to replenish US munitions stockpiles

Lauren C. Williams and Thomas Novelly — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 06:00:00 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — As the U.S. military’s critical munitions are quickly used in the Iran war and slowly produced at home, companies are eagerly pitching new low-cost solutions, and the Pentagon is keen to make big deals. But defense experts say those new, cheaper missiles—and the push to accelerate production of existing weapons—won't soon overcome problems exacerbated by the Iran war, even though they will eventually provide the military much-needed options.

At the Space and Missile Defense Symposium last week, Boeing unveiled a low-cost seeker missile, with crucial hit-to-kill guidance technology used on the PAC-3 missile, made of commercial, off-the-shelf components. At the same conference, Northrop Grumman released its “cost-effective” 50-millimeter gun-based drone defense system to “address a critical short-range air defense gap.”

And last month at the Farnborough International Air Show, Lockheed Martin announced a more affordable, proximity-detonation version of its Patriot missile. But those solutions will likely only boost the Pentagon’s stockpiles if the Iran war drags on and if officials quickly award contracts.

“The push for low-cost munitions is unlikely to have a material effect on the Iran War—at least not anytime soon,” said Becca Wasser, Bloomberg Economics’s defense lead.

And, she said, making enough new weapons, at the right cost, is only part of the problem.

“Getting to a lower cost for exquisite munitions will take time. It requires developing new weapons or adapting old ones, which means going through new testing and evaluation processes,” she said. “If the Iran war drags on for years, that’s when the drive for lower cost interceptors and munitions could have an impact,” because “wars of attrition require enormous amounts of material—and the lower price tag helps.”

Right now, the Pentagon is blowing through its prized Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missiles, and they won’t get replaced anytime soon, defense analysts say—even with novel framework deals.

In the last year, top officials have been pushing those deals with major defense primes and are continuing the administration’s rallying cry for the firms to build and innovate faster. Some of those are starting to bear fruit.

This week, RTX netted a seven-year, $22.9 billion Tomahawk missile contract with the U.S. Navy under a new deal, showing that the military is making big bets on legacy systems as it pursues newer options.

But those legacy munitions still take time to manufacture. In a recent report, the American Enterprise Institute think tank found that it would take 27 years for defense contractors to produce THAADs at the current maximum annual rate of 96 interceptors a year to reach quantities the Pentagon wants.

There “will be a window of vulnerability for several years until inventories return to their previous levels, and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire,” according to a May report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“These newer, lower-cost munitions absolutely should be part of the way we fix this. But we shouldn't be kidding ourselves that they're going to be ready quickly en masse, are operational, and our forces are trained and understand how to use them,” said Todd Harrison, AEI’s defense budget expert. “It will take years, some sooner than others. And I think it remains to be seen if they're going to be available in large quantities sooner than the reorders of the more exquisite existing weapons.”

Framework deals aren’t contracts

The Pentagon has already inked framework agreements for low-cost and traditional munitions. Overall, experts say they are a step in the right direction.

“It's not a contract, but it helps give the companies a demand signal they can take to their boards and their shareholders, and…it reduces their risks, so they can make increased capital expenditures, or capex, investments,” said Jerry McGinn, a CSIS senior fellow and the director of the Center for the Industrial Base.

McGinn teased an upcoming CSIS analysis that found publicly-traded companies with framework agreements increased their capex investment by 31 percent from the second quarter of 2025 to the same quarter this year.

“They're clearly investing more and it's hard not to tie it to those framework agreements. But the challenge is that the framework agreement is an agreement…It's a best faith effort. It's not a contract,” he said.

Congress still has to appropriate the money, the companies have to get on contract, and then they have to deliver, McGinn said. And none of that is guaranteed.

McGinn said he’s keen to watch how many contracts come out of the framework deals.

One of the first major contracts was a seven-year, $35 billion undefinitized contract with Lockheed Martin for THAADs, which leaves some aspects of the agreement open—to be finalized before the contract starts.

Undefinitized contract actions, or UCAs, require special approval and are used for urgent work that all parties “agree needs to begin before final agreement can be reached on price.”

Lockheed Martin executives said they’re up to the task.

“If you look at the framework agreements we've signed, we've leaned into the ask that the country has made of us. Lockheed Martin has never shied away from stepping up to the line and doing what's been asked,” Johnathon Caldwell, Lockheed's vice president of strategic and missile defense systems, told reporters at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We're in an unprecedented era where speed matters, and we're able to bring capabilities to market in weeks and months, not years and decades. We're putting our money on the table, and our commitment.”

It’s a tall order for companies to surge production capacity of those munitions, especially amid supply chain bottlenecks for major components such as solid rocket motors.

But it helps that the Pentagon’s actually allocating and committing money to those problems, Bloomberg’s Wasser said.

“The framework agreements are just that—-agreements, not contracts. Until these are on contract, you won’t see a lot of companies surging production,” she said. “All these efforts—sending the demand signal to industry, qualifying more [solid rocket motor] suppliers, ramping up missile procurement—help, but they don’t solve the problem.”

Low-cost munitions, long-term solutions

Lockheed’s more affordable version of the PAC-3 missile comes with some tradeoffs, and a timeline.

“We basically modified the front end, modified the back end, took out the [Attitude Control Motors], so it's no longer hit-to-kill,” Jason Reynolds, Lockheed’s vice president and general manager of integrated air and missile defense, told reporters during a briefing at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, adding that it integrates with existing munitions systems “at reduced range.”

However, PAC-3 ACE isn’t expecting a first flight until early 2028, and won’t go to production until 18 months after that.

“Everybody wants more air defense interceptors as quickly as possible, and anything that is as capable or nearly as capable as a PAC-3 MSC is a very attractive offer,” Reynolds said on the sidelines of the conference.

There’s no doubt that a more affordable version of the highly-sought after PAC-3 is useful, said Tom Karako, CSIS’ director of the Missile Defense Project. But the question remains: Will the Pentagon buy it?

“PAC-3 ACE is not a contract. It's a concept that they've had for a while and they rolled it out,” he said. “I think the time is right for PAC-3 ACE, but it's a concept, and if you're really attacking the root cause problem, you know the root cause here is the customer.”

A few weeks after the PAC-3 ACE contract was announced, Boeing unveiled its Ultra Low-Cost Seeker. It’s a push to make the company’s precision-guided technology, which makes Patriot missiles deadly and expensive, more accessible and affordable.

“The system uses commercial off-the-shelf components that Boeing adapted for military use,” the company said in a news release this month. “ULCS leverages our seeker expertise developed on programs like PAC-3 MSE, but delivers a different seeker capability that can be applied at low cost to numerous defensive and offensive products to address lower-complexity threats.”

The seeker is still under development, and more flight tests are expected in 2027. Officials declined to provide exact figures on how much more affordable the new product was compared to existing technology.

Overall, there seem to be more options for cheaper replacements to hypersonic or cruise missiles than for top-tier air defense missiles like Patriots and THAAD weapons, said Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral and senior fellow for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

New entrants are also getting in the low-cost missiles game—and landing contracts. There’s Anduril's Barracuda, Zone 5 Technologies’ Rusty Dagger, and Coaspire’s cruise missile.

“We’re seeing it in hypersonic missiles with a company called Castelion…But we're not seeing it in air defense weapons,” Montgomery said.

X-Bow Systems revealed its modestly priced $100,000 drone destroyer at the Farnborough International Airshow. The company also landed a $11 million deal this week with the Missile Defense Agency to develop and test low-cost interceptors.

And the fact that these companies are landing contracts, may be indicative of faster production and delivery in a matter of several months, opposed to years, Montgomery said.

But producing low-cost munitions isn’t necessarily a solution to the U.S. military’s current stockpile problem.

“It's about transitioning your arsenal long term to a high-low mix. But some of these things can come soon,” Montgomery said. “So it doesn't impact the next stage of the war. But it could impact a 2027 end game. And it certainly will impact being ready in 2028, 2029 for Russia or China to do something.”

Strategic shifts

While industry is answering the call to build more affordable munitions, defense experts question whether the military is willing to use them.

In March, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine declared that the U.S. military was pivoting from “from stand-off munitions to stand-in munitions” meaning a pivot from long-range weapons outside the battlefield to ones that need to be dropped within conflict zones.

But CSIS’ Karako said there’s been no significant switch to plentiful GPS-guided, freefall weapons like Joint Direct Attack Munitions in the months since that statement.

"We have 140,000 JDAMS, we have low-cost munitions today. The reason that we're not using them, and the reason that we're hemorrhaging our Tomahawks instead, has to do with extreme risk aversion,” Karako said. “That risk aversion calculus is not going to change just because you have some new entrance, low-cost, low-range missile. We have, today, plenty of munitions that we could use, but we're not using.”

A month after Caine made his comments, a F-15E went down over Iran. The complicated rescue of the two U.S. airmen pushed President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to proclaim the military had “achieved overwhelming air dominance and superiority” over the hostile territory.

Airpower experts previously told Defense One that broad terms used by the administration painted an inaccurate reality of the dangerous situation U.S. pilots find themselves in over the region. That lack of total control also limits which munitions the military is willing to use.

“Despite efforts to gain air supremacy over Iran, the U.S. was only able to gain localized air superiority over some parts. That reduced the ability to drop JDAMs instead,” Wasser said. “Switching to a strategy that relies on JDAMs would mean accepting more risk—or taking steps to further degrade Iranian capabilities to allow for greater U.S. use of the skies without threat.”

Experts told Defense One the Iran war has exacerbated long-standing problems with how the military uses and buys munitions. And while it’s possible the Pentagon could weather this conflict, the resulting mission depletion will likely make future wars—particularly with China—a struggle.

“These missiles will also be critical for a potential Western Pacific conflict,” an April CSIS report said. “Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. That shortfall is now even more acute, and building stockpiles to levels adequate for a war with China will take additional time.”

Until production on existing munitions and interceptors ramps up and the Pentagon buys a new mix of high- and low-end missiles, Karako said the military should look at the plentiful munitions it already has—and use them.

“The more immediate thing that we could be doing is changing our tactics,” Karako said. “We've hemorrhaged our long-range stuff, and the thing that we could do is we could start using gravity bombs, but we're not willing to do that … Everytime CENTCOM fires a Tomahawk at somebody without air defense, an angel loses its wings in PACOM.”

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Defense Business Brief: Arcfield’s state of play; SMD wrap up; X-Bow Systems’ MDA win

Lauren C. Williams — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:28:23 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—There are less than four months left in the year, but defense and aerospace company Arcfield’s plans seem to just be getting started, as they prepare for an upcoming satellite launch and explore manufacturing a highly specialized component key for optical sensors and laser communications.

“There's a lot going on at Arcfield. And what we're really focused on is bringing the government a fully-baked solution,” Dan Knight, Arcfield’s vice president for Golden Dome initiatives and strategy, told Defense One at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., last week. “Instead of saying, ‘Hey, I'm the one-trick wonder that just does sensors,’ or ‘I'm the one-trick wonder that just does architecture,’ we leverage all of our expertise across our organization to bring something that can be easily integrated and operationalized.”

Arcfield is planning to test several sensors in the coming months, and its subsidiary, Orion Space Solutions, expects to launch a very low earth orbit, or VLEO, satellite in September.

“You launch it up to the International Space Station. One of the astronauts up there takes it out, puts it in like a little Pez dispenser, and drops it down into very low Earth orbit,” Knight said. “There's a lot of sensing that happens in the ionosphere with this particular satellite—and some communications packages and other things.”

Knight said the company is forging geostationary orbit satellite plans for 2027 on top of supporting Golden Dome with mission engineering.

“We have a long history of [low-Earth orbit] satellites. We're building a GEO refueler so that the Space Force can maneuver without regret…and then we do optical and [high frequency] sensors,” Knight said, speaking about missile warning and tracking.

The company also wants to scale its manufacturing ability for a very special type of glass.

“We want to get into the manufacturing business of something called an etalon. And you're like, I've never heard the word etalon in my life!” Knight said with a laugh. “It's a highly polished piece of glass. And it's needed for a variety of optical applications—so laser communications, very precise telescopes, and very, very sophisticated optical sensors like the ones we build.”

The move comes as the U.S. military increasingly relies on sensors to garner intel, improve navigation, and fuel autonomy, all while the White House pushes for domestic manufacturing of national security technologies.

“There's a backlog based on our foreign suppliers. We really want to get that investment from the government, which is what they've said they want to do, and get that online so that we can provide etalons for the defense industrial base,” Knight said, referring to working with the Pentagon’s Manufacturing Technology, or ManTech, program.

Arcfield already makes etalons for its products but expansion would support internal growth and the industrial base overall, Knight said. The company has conducted demos and submitted a white paper to start the process with hopes of getting government funding to help build out its manufacturing capacity for a larger scale.

“We want to expand our manufacturing line for our optical sensor…and within that, that's going to require a fairly significant expansion of the etalon production. We can't [rely] on a company in Canada that produces it,” he said.

Welcome

A space-age name change. The German air force, Luftwaffe, officially changed its English name translation to the German Air and Space Force, said Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, who leads Germany’s Space Command.

“What we've seen is that the air and the space domains [are] increasingly merging,” Traut said during an international space panel at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium last week.
Germany wants to procure space surveillance radars, he said, adding that, “Of course, we know that capable missile defense radars can look into space as well. As such, I'm completely interested in the data they provide, and I'm completely interested in the integration.”
Last year, Germany committed €35 billion to space-related defense projects. The NATO nation is also interested in hypersonic vehicles, specifically space planes, presenting “an opportunity to operate in different altitudes we were used to,” Traut said.
“We are absolutely committed strategically to develop and operate space planes in high atmospheric hypersonic operations. [That] not only sets us up to defend against enemy threats, but to explore and make use of that altitude as well.”

Increased munitions options means launchers should do more with less. Common Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher, or CAML, represents the kind of thinking we need around launchers, Brig. Gen. Robert J. Mikesh, the Army’s capability program executive for offensive fires, said during the symposium.

“We should not think of every launcher as permanently married to a single missile or munition,” Mikesh said.
“We need to think about adaptable platforms, commonality, autonomy, payloads for both offensive or defensive environments, reduced soldier burden and the ability to integrate new capabilities more rapidly. The launcher can no longer be an afterthought,” Mikesh said.

Bonus round: NORTHCOM keeps eye on security needs for power generation and increasingly electrified military systems and command and control centers, said Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, the command’s deputy commander.

“We are aware of some of the issues with respect to that,” Jarrard said during the Q&A portion of his keynote at the symposium. “Obviously some of our critical infrastructure requires some of those energy sources. And so I will say that's on our radar…But it hasn't necessarily risen to the level we consider it to be a problem that we have to deal with directly, right now.”
One thing that is top of mind: The lack of sensors to spot and protect military bases from drone attacks.

Making moves + other news

The Missile Defense Agency awarded X-Bow Systems an $11 million contract for testing and development of low-cost interceptors.
Rocketmaker United Launch Alliance names Mark Peller as CEO.
Sam Mehta takes over as L3Harris’ CEO, following the ousting of Chris Kubasik.
Auriga Space brings on former MDA Director Trey Obering as an advisor, Defense One has learned.
REGENT’s seaglider drone platform performs in the Silent Swarm defense event.
CACI opens a manufacturing center in Rochester, N.Y.
Havoc AI teams up with Red Cat.
The Pentagon is auditing academic institutions to scrutinize foreign ties. Related: Reuters looks at how U.S. military funding fueled China’s robot dog boo

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DISA awards Peraton $953M communications infrastructure contract

Ross Wilkers — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:19:00 -0400

Peraton has won a potential 10-year, $953 million contract to continue providing communication infrastructure services to the Defense Information Systems Agency for data centers and hybrid cloud computing environments.

DISA received three proposals for this third iteration of its Capacity Services Communications contract, the agency said in an award notice first posted Friday.

CSC III emphasizes on-demand communications capabilities as the agency adjusts its requirements based on mission needs instead of a fixed equipment set, according to solicitation documents from February.

Peraton is tasked with providing hardware, operating software, storage, network management tools and software, automation tools and software and technical services across DISA and non-DISA sites around the world.

Work will take place over an initial five-year base period and up to five individual option years.

Peraton inherited the CSC program in 2021 through its combination with Perspecta, which purchased longtime incumbent Knight Point Systems in 2019.

Knight Point won the first iteration in 2011 and secured the recompete in 2018. DISA has obligated $573 million in task order volume against the current contract ahead of its April 2027 sunset, according to GovTribe data.

Editor's note: DISA updated its award notice post-publication to say the contract ceiling is $953 million.

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Defense firm L3Harris promotes Mehta to CEO in abrupt leadership change

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:31:47 -0400

L3Harris Technologies’ board of directors has promoted Sam Mehta to chief executive from his former role as president of space and mission systems in an abrupt leadership change announced Monday.

Chris Kubasik, L3Harris’ CEO since June 2021, stepped down from that position and his other roles as chairman and member of the board of directors effective immediately.

L3Harris said the board determined to enter into a separation agreement with Kubasik after an investigation found conduct by him that was “not consistent with the values of the company as outlined in its code of conduct.” The company added the alleged conduct was not related to its financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance.

Mehta joined L3Harris in 2023 as president of the communications segment, then added the additional title of president of the space and mission systems segment at the start of this year.

This transition at the very top of L3Harris is taking place in a year where the company announced its intentions to take the missile solutions segment public following a $1 billion investment from the Defense Department.

L3Harris originally eyed the second half of this year for the initial public offering, but Kubasik told investors in July that the IPO is being delayed until at least mid-2027 because of market conditions the company sees as not reflecting the value of Mission Solutions.

Kubasik’s tenure as CEO started with the completion of the integration of L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. following their merger in 2019, and includes the $4.7 billion acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023.

The pending Missile Solutions IPO is not the only move L3Harris has undertaken with respect to its space business. L3Harris closed the sale of a 60% stake in the space propulsion and power systems business this month to AE Industrial Partners, while retaining a 40% stake.

In addition to Mehta’s promotion, Lauren Barnes has moved up to be president of the space and mission systems segment from her prior role as president of spectrum superiority. Christopher Aebli, formerly president of mission critical communications, was elevated to president of the communications and spectrum dominance.

Lewis Hay III, a member of the L3Harris and a predecessor board since 2002, was elected chairman after previously holding the title of lead independent director.

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The Army gave General Dynamics $533M to build an artillery plant that produced nothing

Jesse Coburn, ProPublica — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:27:52 -0400

A robot was on fire. Again.

It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.

Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.

The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July.

The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.

Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology.

“It’s an absolute disaster,” said one former official in an Army office supervising the project. “The Army should’ve gone after recovering money from General Dynamics,” added the official, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Publicly, the Army has been tight-lipped about what, exactly, went wrong at the factory, located in a sprawling suburb called Mesquite. The inspector general report described the failure but offered few specifics. It didn’t name the companies involved, much less any of the individuals responsible. The report’s recommendations were tepid: The Army should determine whether the contract was “appropriately issued,” how “the money was spent” and whether it can recoup any of it. It should also “identify and implement a solution” for producing more artillery. Army officials deflected blame, telling the inspector general that they didn’t do anything wrong.

In a detailed statement to ProPublica, the Army said it will recover funding for the project by getting unspecified discounts from General Dynamics on production orders. “The Army is exercising rigorous oversight to ensure every dollar invested delivers capability to the warfighter,” the statement read. “Where vendors fail to meet contract specifications, as seen at the Mesquite facility, we are evaluating contract performance, seeking recoupment of funds, and pivoting resources.”

As for General Dynamics, it has given no public explanation whatsoever. The company has said that it “met or exceeded requirements,” according to the inspector general report. General Dynamics declined an interview request from ProPublica. Company spokesperson Jeff Davis said ProPublica’s reporting “fundamentally mischaracterizes the circumstances and falsely impugns our record of employee safety and truthfulness with our customer.” He continued: “An article based on this foundation would be a materially false and misleading hit piece.” Davis did not respond to ProPublica’s request that he specify the alleged errors.

ProPublica reconstructed how the project went awry through interviews with 36 current and former employees of General Dynamics, the Army, the Pentagon and the White House. ProPublica also reviewed internal company documents as well as photographs and videos taken inside the factory.

Those involved described a project that was rushed and ill considered from the start. Congress paved the way, removing government contracting guardrails — meant to ensure taxpayer money isn’t wasted — so that Ukraine-related defense projects could be funded quickly. The Army took advantage, handing General Dynamics lucrative no-bid awards without knowing whether the machines it planned to use could perform the desired work. The Army’s due diligence was inadequate, four former Army and General Dynamics officials told ProPublica.

Compared to the multibillion-dollar budgets of other DOD projects, the financial cost of the Texas debacle is small. But the lack of consequences for the companies involved, in the view of defense-spending critics, is symptomatic of a larger problem: a deep-rooted culture at the Pentagon and in Congress in which expensive failures lead only to more spending. Such critics fear that extreme cases like this one could become more common if the Trump administration succeeds in boosting the defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The administration is also seeking tens of billions of dollars for its war against Iran and pressuring defense companies to quickly ramp up weapons production.

“Too often the contractors have no accountability for their mistakes,” defense budget researcher William Hartung said. The Texas failure, he said, “is a foreshadow of what’s to come if the Trump administration gets the budget it asked for.”

The Pitch

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 felt like an emergency to the Biden administration. For General Dynamics, it was an opportunity. And Firat Gezen was ready with a pitch.

In six years running General Dynamics’ Ordnance and Tactical Systems business, Gezen had earned a reputation as a deft strategist and salesman. At 50, he wasn’t an engineer, and he had no experience running factories. He had spent decades working on the financial side of the weapons business. With a ready smile and a delivery as smooth as his perfectly bald head, he knew how to woo corporate leaders and Pentagon arms buyers alike.

Gezen was also shrewd. In 2020, after the Army sought to diversify its artillery supplier base by contracting with a small Pennsylvania company, Gezen swooped in and bought that company. That allowed General Dynamics to maintain its stranglehold over the production of metal bodies for the standard American artillery shell, referred to by its caliber: 155 mm. “Firat throws his arm around you and talks to you nicely,” one former Army official said. “But he’s got, like, five things that he’s the sole provider of, and it’s exclusive. He’s got you locked up forever.”

Firat Gezen, former president of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems U.S. Army photo by PFC Brandon L. Perry

That put General Dynamics in an ideal position. Russia and Ukraine were firing thousands of shells back and forth each day. The United States was a key supplier to Ukraine, but decades of disinvestment had left the U.S. artillery industry emaciated. In March 2022, Congress passed the first in a series of bills allocating billions of dollars for Ukraine-related causes, including boosting artillery production. The next month, President Joe Biden pledged to send shells to Ukraine, and he wanted to move fast. But first someone had to make them.

The 155 mm shell has been a military workhorse for a century, owing to its simple, lethal power. Packed with TNT, the 33-inch cylinder can travel 10 miles when shot out of the barrel of a howitzer and send fragments flying hundreds of feet upon impact. But decades of asymmetric warfare in the Middle East, in which the United States relied largely on drones and bombs, had led some to believe the days of artillery battles were waning. By 2022, General Dynamics was the only producer of 155 mm metal shell bodies in the country, mainly in a century-old facility in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Given that, the company was an obvious candidate to meet the sudden new demand. General Dynamics could simply replicate Scranton’s traditional manufacturing method, which dated back to the time of the Korean War. But in meetings with Pentagon officials in the fall of 2022, Gezen proposed an alternative: What if the Army funded a state-of-the-art production line that used a promising new technique?

A soldier attends to 155 mm shells in Ukraine in March 2025. Dmytro Smolienko/Urinform/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Central to this proposal was a virtual unknown in the world of American defense: Repkon. The company had been operating in its home country of Turkey for decades, providing “turnkey production facilities in the metal forming industry.” (Coincidentally, Gezen himself was born to Turkish parents in the United States.)

But Repkon had never received a Pentagon contract, and certainly not for its signature metalworking process called “flow-forming.” Whereas the Scranton method mainly involves molding ultrahot steel in giant forging presses, Repkon added a step in which a fast-spinning machine squeezes and rolls out the metal like clay on a potter’s wheel. The advantage, Gezen told defense officials, is that the same equipment could produce shells of various calibers. Most important, Repkon had a production line already available, meaning General Dynamics could start making shells faster than if it had to procure traditional equipment piece by piece.

Warning signs abounded. Army officials learned that the production line that Repkon wanted to sell had been designed to produce an older, simpler model of 155 mm shells, which was made with different steel. It wasn’t clear that the Turkish equipment could even work with the steel used to make the newer 155 mm model, as the equipment had never actually produced it, according to four former General Dynamics and Army officials. Repkon said other countries were using the machines to produce the older model. But the Army and General Dynamics could not inspect those active production lines, Repkon told them, citing customer privacy.

The Army could have balked at all of this and insisted on learning more about the capacity of the Repkon machines to perform the desired work. But learning more would’ve taken time, and time seemed in short supply. “There was incredible pressure to go fast,” a former Army official said. Everybody moved forward.

In November 2022, the Army raced to give General Dynamics the first in a series of contract awards for the project that would ultimately be worth nearly $600 million if carried to completion. The next month, Congress granted the DOD extraordinary powers to award money for Ukraine-related causes without the usual contracting safeguards, dropping competitive bidding requirements and restrictions on so-called undefinitized contracting actions. UCAs allow a company to begin work even before finalizing the terms of its contract with the government. One defense executive compared them to “building the airplane as you’re flying it.”

The Army made the most of its expanded powers, awarding General Dynamics a number of UCAs without considering alternate proposals in a competitive bidding process. (The Army told ProPublica it selected the company because of its unique artillery production experience.)

In fact, the Army was so enamored with the proposal that it decided to order even more than Gezen had pitched. Instead of contracting for one Repkon production line, the Army signed up to buy three. Without knowing whether any of them would work.

Gezen had never overseen a project this ambitious. Until then, he had mainly presided over smaller expansions of existing factories that used traditional methods. But he was optimistic it would work. “He’s extremely aggressive, willing to take risks,” one former colleague said.

Some of the Army’s scrutiny of the proposal occurred only after it began awarding contracts for it. The service and General Dynamics sent staffers to Turkey to inspect Repkon’s machinery, but they never inspected a full production line in action and there weren’t enough experts who could spot potential defects in the equipment, four former General Dynamics and Army officials said. Crucially, before greenlighting the deal, the Army did not require General Dynamics to demonstrate that it could use the Repkon equipment to complete the entire production process and make shells that met the Army’s specifications. (The Army told ProPublica that “formal testing could not occur prior to full machinery installation.”)

If the typical contracting safeguards had been in place, perhaps everything that followed could have been prevented. If the Pentagon had been forced to open the project to competitive bidding, it would have had to consider other proposals in a painstaking review process. If restrictions on UCAs had been in effect, the Pentagon would have had to slow down and finalize the terms of the deal before allowing it to proceed, which might have surfaced its fatal flaws.

But one man’s due diligence is another man’s red tape. Soon, Repkon’s flow-forming machines were sailing across the Atlantic, heading eventually for Mesquite.

“This Is Actually Hell”

On May 29, 2024, the mood in Mesquite was triumphant. After two short years of planning, the factory was opening, and defense officials and executives gathered there to celebrate.

Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth at the opening of General Dynamics’ artillery factory Sgt.1st Class Nicole Mejia/U.S. Army

“Our nation’s defense relies not only on our soldiers and other servicemembers in uniform but on production facilities like this one,” then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told seated dignitaries. She stood at a podium branded with the General Dynamics logo, with two howitzers posed behind her. She thanked the company’s CEO, Phebe Novakovic, and Gezen by name. “It’s a pleasure to highlight the fantastic work you all have done,” she said.

But everything was not as fantastic as it appeared. Artillery shells displayed around the plant that day had been shipped in from elsewhere, three former workers told ProPublica. A worker picked one up and was startled to discover it was fake — seemingly made of plastic. General Dynamics had already failed to perform a scheduled first article test, meant to demonstrate the facility could produce shells that met the Army’s specifications. The facility was supposed to start cranking out shells soon, but machines were barely functioning.

Soon problems seemed to explode out of every corner, according to interviews with 12 former factory workers. For one thing, the flaming robot arms also kept smashing into things. They slammed into computer numerical control machines, breaking their windows and bending their doors. They knocked over shells. They bashed into safety fences. Workers talked about the arms going “rogue” and began calling one of them “Johnny 5” after a sentient military robot from a 1980s movie.

Even simple equipment failed with slapstick regularity, six workers said. Conveyor belts broke down. Automated carts got lost. Safety gates meant to shut down machines when workers approached did not shut down machines when workers approached. A pipe exploded, spraying water up to the ceiling. Parts on Repkon machines deformed, leading a worker to discover that they were made with Chinese steel, possibly in violation of federal regulations. (The Army said it has no evidence of such violations.)

Smoke hung in the air; it rolled off the press machines when robots sprayed them with lubricant. Workers could feel the smoke in their lungs. When they blew their noses after shifts, their mucus was black. A worker complained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about a “respirable hazard” at the factory, according to an OSHA record and spokesperson. The agency opened an investigation in October 2024, and an inspector visited the facility. The smoke-spewing press machines were scheduled to be operating on the day of the visit, but for some reason they weren’t running during the inspection, according to four former workers. OSHA issued no penalties, the agency told ProPublica. Staffers started to think it wasn’t just Repkon’s faulty equipment to blame for problems at the factory — it was General Dynamics’ management, too.

The plant could reach Sahara Desert temperatures when the furnaces or presses were on. “This is actually hell,” one worker thought to himself. It was hotter still inside cabinets containing drives that controlled critical machines, where it was regularly 140 degrees, two former workers told ProPublica. An outside inspector warned in an email reviewed by ProPublica that, at that temperature, “you would not only have drives failing but also human lives failing.”

Every day seemed to bring more of the same: another machine broken, another frantic effort to repair it, another batch of misshapen shells tossed into the discard pile. As 2024 became 2025, little seemed to get better.

With so few shells passing inspection stations along the production line, many workers had nothing to do. A cat-and-mouse game ensued. Bored staffers spent endless hours gazing at their phones, leading supervisors to restrict phone use. So workers began bringing crossword books. Managers nixed those. Some workers were seen sleeping, so supervisors took away chairs.

“We sat around twiddling our thumbs, trying to find work, trying to figure out what was going on,” said Natashia Passmore, a former production technician in the plant. “It was a waste of government money, and it was a waste of our time.”

The Dumpster Fire

Tension rose between the Americans hired by General Dynamics and Turkish workers sent over by Repkon. The Repkon team was there to install the equipment, but it seemed equally flummoxed by the problems. General Dynamics workers found them evasive. They would give curt responses to questions in English but then be seen holding long, animated conversations in Turkish outside during frequent smoking breaks. A carelessly discarded cigarette butt sparked a real-life dumpster fire, three former workers said.

Repkon was especially secretive about the flow-forming machines, refusing to answer most questions about their operations. General Dynamics workers could tell when Repkon was testing one of them, because they would find metal shards scattered on the floor around it later. The shards looked like alligator teeth. “Oh, the tooth fairy was here,” one worker would think to himself.

Paranoia set in. Repkon refused to share passwords needed to control important equipment, according to five former General Dynamics employees. Sometimes workers would be startled by the sight of a machine moving by itself and realize it was being controlled by someone in Turkey. Spooked, General Dynamics workers tore out hardware to cut off remote access to the machines, two former workers said.

Rumors swirled among the Americans that the Turks were purposefully sabotaging machinery — or perhaps even engaged in some convoluted form of espionage. “It was astonishing how little progress we would make, month after month, year after year,” one former General Dynamics worker said. “People started speculating, ‘I wonder if they’re spying on us.’” General Dynamics assigned someone to shadow the Repkon workers in the factory, two former staffers said. (The Army said it has no evidence of sabotage or spying.)

Even the buildings themselves — a trio of vast, anonymous boxes tucked into the crook of two freeways — were plagued with problems. Walls cracked, and daylight became visible around window frames. Doors began dragging on concrete floors. When it rained, water would flood in — “like a tsunami,” one former worker said. The foundations appeared to be shifting or sinking, six former employees said. It was as if the whole dysfunctional factory — its fires and smoke, its idle workers and haywire machines — was being slowly sucked down into the earth.

Faced with the kaleidoscopic array of problems, the response from General Dynamics managers always seemed to be to plow forward. “Every single time they opened their mouths, it was: ‘We need to get into production,’” one former worker said. “Production is the only thing that mattered.”

“Nobody Wins”

As the situation at the factory deteriorated, General Dynamics and the Army told a very different story to the public.

In April 2024, General Dynamics CEO Novakovic told investors: “In the U.S., we are rapidly increasing ammunition production with the opening of our Texas facility.” General Dynamics failed to conduct a scheduled first article test in Mesquite that same month.

That July, two months after the opening ceremony, Novakovic told investors that “the first line is running and producing as we anticipated.” In fact, the first line was not producing any usable shells, six former plant workers told ProPublica.

In September Doug Bush, then the Army’s acquisition czar and a key figure overseeing the project, said “there have been no major delays” to the Army’s goal of producing 100,000 artillery shells each month — a goal for which the Mesquite factory was critical. “Any delays you’ve had have been measured in, I would call them weeks, not months, certainly not years,” Bush told reporters. He downplayed the problems, describing them as merely a matter of adjusting a machine “so that it puts out shells just so, versus a little bit off.”

The next day, a laborer in Mesquite photographed the work of a machine meant to begin giving the shells perfectly smooth noses; it had instead mangled the metal into something that resembled the swirl of soft-serve ice cream.

A machine at the factory sometimes mangled artillery shells, meant to be perfectly smooth, into swirls that looked like soft serve. Obtained by ProPublica

Also in September, Secretary Wormuth touted the Army’s artillery ramp-up at a conference, saying, “part of what’s enabling that are things like the brand-new plant that we opened up in Mesquite.” One month later, an Army contracting officer sent General Dynamics a letter of concern about its performance at the facility. The company missed the Army’s deadline for completing the first production line one month after that. (Wormuth declined to comment.)

Despite it all, Gezen remained optimistic through the fall of 2024. The issues in Mesquite were mere delays, he thought, and there were plans in place to fix them, according to a person familiar with his thinking. “If Firat’s guilty of something, it’s not wanting to see the truth in the matter,” a former colleague said. He “has a tendency to not want to listen to bad news.” General Dynamics announcedGezen’s retirement in January 2025. Some industry insiders believe he was pushed out in part over Mesquite. (Gezen denied that but declined to sit for an on-the-record interview.)

The split screen of blown deadlines and rosy public comments continued into the second administration of President Donald Trump. In April 2025, General Dynamics missed the completion date for the second production line. That same month, Novakovic told investors, once again: “We are rapidly increasing munitions capacity and production with the opening of our projectile facility in Texas.” The company missed another first article test two months later.

As the failures mounted, a sinking feeling took hold in Army offices. The service assembled a team to assess the situation in the factory, which produced a report that gave little confidence the problems could be fixed. Finally, in June 2025, the Army told General Dynamics it was considering terminating the contract awards for the plant, a defense trade publication reported at the time. Two months later, the service ordered work halted on two of the factory’s three production lines.

But the Army did not unilaterally terminate the contract awards. “A termination for default would’ve taken years through the legal system, because General Dynamics wasn’t going to accept that,” a former Army official told ProPublica. “Nobody wins except the lawyers.”

This would not be the last act of generosity from the Trump administration to General Dynamics. In December 2025, according to the inspector general’s report, the government paid the company $26.3 million in “progress payments” for the second and third production lines in Mesquite, although neither line had ever produced a usable shell.

General Dynamics’ factory in Mesquite, photographed in August Desiree Rios for ProPublica

A Novel Solution

Two months ago, General Dynamics made an announcement that conjured a sense of déjà vu. To fix the problems at the factory, the company would team up with yet another unheard-of partner promising technological innovation. The solution this time? Artificial intelligence.

A news release from General Dynamics and the new company, Deterrence, was filled with techno-business jargon. “AI-enabled capabilities” and “intelligence and connectivity” would be added at Mesquite and other General Dynamics factories, the companies wrote. “AI transforms production facilities into strategic assets,” Deterrence’s CEO said in the release. “We’re building autonomous manufacturing systems that learn, adapt, and scale in real time.”

These pronouncements have baffled former Mesquite workers. “What are they talking about? There’s nothing to learn or adapt or scale,” one said. “It’s all broken.”

General Dynamics is doing this even as it replaces most of the Repkon equipment with traditional machines like those used in Scranton. How AI will wrest miracles from decades-old technology is unclear. But General Dynamics told investors it expects to be in production next year, and the Army told the inspector general that’ll amount to 20,000 shells a month.

Compared with Repkon, Deterrence is perhaps an even less conventional choice. Deterrence was established just three years ago and has never received a DOD contract. Its website gives no indication it has ever helped to manufacture anything. Its three founders have no prior defense experience. One of them worked at Tesla; the other two created a startup that enabled people to lock and unlock buildings with smartphones. Deterrence did not respond to a request for comment.

General Dynamics also pledged to put $200 million into the project. That’s a small sum for a company that generated more than $50 billion in revenue last year and gave CEO Novakovic a compensation package worth more than $25 million. (Meanwhile, the company furloughed or laid off most of the Mesquite workers.)

The Army says it won’t spend any more money on the project, but it has hardly blackballed General Dynamics. Since the Army shut down work on two production lines in Mesquite one year ago, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion, the Army told ProPublica. (The service said this was for “distinct production lines and critical national defense requirements” unrelated to Mesquite.)

Repkon’s American offshoot is now at work setting up a TNT factory after receiving a no-bid contract from the Army worth $435 million. TNT is the primary explosive fill in 155 mm shells. Repkon Turkey’s CEO co-founded the American company, which was originally named Repkon USA. In March, it changed its name to Paligen Technologies. Some interpreted this as an effort to create distance from the Mesquite disaster. Paligen told ProPublica that it and Repkon are “different and wholly separate companies.” Repkon Turkey did not respond to requests for comment.

The one thing that key decision-makers appear to agree on is that they are absolutely not to blame. Gezen, the former General Dynamics executive, told ProPublica that the company and the Army did nothing wrong. In a brief conversation at his apartment door in a ritzy section of Washington, D.C., in May, Gezen maintained his sunny optimism. The Repkon equipment was a good option, and it may still be a good option, he said, holding an iced coffee in one hand and restraining a large dog with his other. In any case, he added, “it was the fastest option available.”

Bush, the Army’s former acquisition chief who had assured reporters there were “no major delays” to increasing artillery production, also declined to be interviewed. In a terse conversation in May, peering out from his half-closed front door in Northern Virginia, he told ProPublica: “All of this was done through appropriate procedures.”

Others who were involved, speaking on the condition of anonymity, engaged in mutual finger-pointing: The White House demanded too much too fast, Repkon and General Dynamics overpromised, the Army didn’t perform due diligence and Congress underwrote the whole thing.

The United States still is not close to producing the promised 100,000 shells per month, a former Army official told ProPublica in June, although other investments to increase 155 mm production have turned out better. Ukraine still needs those shells, the official said, but attention has once again shifted. In the Middle East, it’s other munitions that the Trump administration has rapidly burned through during its war with Iran. Trump officials are now calling for ramping up production in those areas — and fast.

“Conventional ammo is back on the back burner,” the official said. “Everything now is about interceptors, missiles.”

General Dynamics makes components for those too.

Alex Mierjeski and Jeff Ernsthausen contributed research.

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

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Army picks M1 to lead $10B helicopter-school transformation

Thomas Novelly — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:10:13 -0400

A Texas-based aviation company beat out Bell and Lockheed Martin to lead the transformation of Army helicopter training, the service announced on Thursday.

The Army awarded M1 Support Services its Flight School Next contract, a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity worth up to $10 billion for up to 26 years. It’s the culmination of a months-long competition aimed at converting the service’s Initial Entry Rotary Wing school at Fort Rucker, Alabama, to a contractor-owned and -operated model. Officials expect the change to reduce costs by taking helicopters, instructors, and maintenance out of the service’s hands and pushing pilots to focus on aviation fundamentals.

"This is a major step forward in modernizing how we train our aviation force," Brent G. Ingraham, the Army’s assistant secretary of acquisition, logistics and technology, said in a news release. "Flight School Next delivers the next generation of training capabilities our aviators need to succeed in increasingly complex operational environments."

M1 bid as leader of a team that includes Robinson Helicopter Company, Quantum Helicopters, General Dynamics Information Technology, and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation. It was one of three major finalists, including Lockheed and Bell, that emerged after the December call for solutions.

Last year, Congress raised concerns and blocked funding for the flight school effort in theNational Defense Authorization Act, pending the results of a trial program. It’s not immediately clear when the Army met the congressional requirements before it awarded the contract.

“We are honored to be entrusted with this vital mission,” said George Krivo, M1 chairman and CEO, in a press release. “M1 will deliver a fully integrated, innovation rich training solution designed to develop more proficient Army Aviators on time and on budget.”

Defense One reported in April that Lockheed had been dropped from the competition. Bell said in an emailed statement on Friday that they were disappointed in the Army’s selection.

“Bell was notified by the U.S. Army that our turnkey solution was not selected for the Flight School Next program,” a company spokesperson wrote. “While Bell is disappointed by this outcome, we are thankful for the opportunity to participate and our commitment to supporting warfighters has not changed.”

Under M1’s offering, new Army pilots will learn to fly on Robinson Helicopter’s R66 helicopter, which was offered to meet the service’s requirement for an aircraft with a single turbine engine and a rotor that spins counterclockwise.

The Army’s current aircraft, Airbus’ twin-engine UH-72 Lakota, has been criticized by military leaders as being too expensive and restrictive for teaching aviation basics.

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Pentagon hands Palantir up to $244M in no-bid work

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Palantir has secured another lucrative commitment from the Defense Department: a pledge to pay the company up to $243.9 million to use its software through March 31, 2027.

In a memo viewed by Washington Technology, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg has directed DOD departments to identify options for more spending on Palantir products from April 1, 2027, and Dec. 28, 2028.

In the memo, Feinberg says Palantir's software is "providing valuable support to improve efficiencies with the defense industrial base"—for example, by flagging delays in munitions and delivery-vehicle production and maintenance.

Feinberg made no mention of specific contracts or vehicles.

The action follows a July award of a 10-year, $10 billion Army agreement that consolidated many of Palantir’s existing contracts into a single pact.

The Feinberg memo appears to be part of a trend in federal contracting, where no-compete contracts are growing as a percentage of all awards. No-compete contracts accounted for 14.8% of all awards in the first half of 2026, up from 12.6% for the period in 2025.

Federal News Radio reported that DOD said it has issued similar memos involving other companies.

No-compete contracts are allowed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation if agencies properly document why a sole-source contract is the best use of federal funds. Reasons for a no-compete contract can include urgency, only one responsible source, critical follow-on work, and national security.

Feinberg's memo mentions none of those reasons for directing the spending to Palantir.

Palantir's portfolio of no-compete contracts includes an Agriculture Department award for the One Farmer, One File program. The department also used Palantir's software for its return-to-the-office initiative.

According to GovTribe data, the company has received $3.2 billion in contract obligations since 2024, roughly half through no-compete contracts.

Last week, Palantir reported second-quarter revenues of $1.9 billion, up 93 percent year-over-year. Federal contracts accounted for $809 million of that, up 90 percent from last year.

Palantir is ranked No. 40 on the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100, rising 22 spots in a year.

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Defense Business Brief: VR welding; News from SMD; L3Harris opens maritime factory

Lauren C. Williams — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:41:34 -0400

PASCAGOULA, Miss.—Thick puffs of clouds didn’t stop the sun from beating down on the shipyard. And only a strong morning breeze could cut that Gulf Coast heat. But prospective welders for HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding need not immediately contend with the elements to get a taste of the trade—thanks to the yard’s air-conditioned virtual-reality welding lab.

“If you’ve never worked with your hands before, or used a welding torch, it can feel intimidating,” Brian Blanchette, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, told Defense One. “Starting in a virtual-reality setting provides a controlled, low‑pressure environment. It not only helps reduce that initial fear, but it also gives instructors much better control and feedback.”

And while learning in a classroom may seem unrealistically pleasant, the VR lab speeds up training by giving entry-level students about 10 times more hands-on practice at melting metal than if using standard welding booths in the same amount of class time.

Ingalls and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College opened the lab, which has 48 training stations, in January 2025. About 1,000 students, including apprentices and new employees, have completed the VR welding training before advancing to traditional instruction.

The workstations are lined neatly against the walls of a long classroom.

There are blue plastic panels with lime-green QR codes in neat rows that mimic welding materials plates. The welder’s helmet, equipped with small cameras and screens, virtually transforms that plastic into steel. There were also different contact tips and attachments that could be swapped out for different tasks.

Students are gradually introduced to the realities of their tradecraft: virtually welding barehanded and then with gloves, learning angles, precision, and pace—which oddly meant going much slower than you’d think.

I wrapped the hose around my arm, steadied my two-handed grip, and virtually welded about four inches. Holding the right angle was the hardest part.

Trainees can see visual aids that measure torch position, speed, angle, the tip’s distance from the plate—all adding up on a scorecard to show progress and areas for improvement.

The software is really responsive and felt lifelike—even for someone who had never welded anything before.

But there’s one thing VR welding can’t teach: That tactile feeling of gas and fire coming from the nozzle pressing against the steel.

“I can’t teach ‘feel’ in here,” my instructor said, “all I can teach is ‘place’.”

That doesn’t stop students from practicing until they can get the highest score possible: a 99. Students need a 90 or above before they can progress to the next activity. I got a 92 on my first try on a very basic step.

Welcome

Space Command’s new HQ: The command’s new facility in Huntsville, Ala., will have about 200 personnel by year’s end, up from the 113 at Redstone Arsenal right now, Gen. Stephen Whiting, who leads the command, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium Wednesday. There were, and just 20 in March.

“We plan to have over half our headquarters staff on the Arsenal by the end of 2028, and the entire command fully moved by 2032,” Whiting added.
Some background: The command’s move to Huntsville has been hotly debated in recent years. Space Command is also updating its facilities and opened its first operational facility at Redstone in April.

Making moves + other news

L3Harris opened a maritime production facility in Providence, R.I. The 50,000-sq.-ft. facility at ProvPort will be used to “integrate and test advanced undersea training systems for the U.S. Navy” and allies, the company said in a news release.
Vatn Systems inked a research deal with Taiwan’s national science and technology institute to explore defense uses of autonomous undersea vessels. Last year, the company signed a deal with South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Defense.
U.S. Southern Command tapped HII’s tech division for a $2.2 billion task order for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance kit.
DARPA dropped an RFI on next-generation hypersonic cruise missiles—h/t to Defense One’s Thomas Novelly. Check out his latest here.
Boeing is selling its eVTOL business to Archer Aviation in exchange for a stake in the company, piloted air taxis and UAS.
Joby Aviation is expanding its defense business by acquiring defense tech company Resonant Sciences for around $500 million. Resonant Sciences has “classified infrastructure…established production operations and longstanding customer relationships, as well as a deeply experienced technical team,” according to the release. Related: Cerberus Capital Management, the firm Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg co-founded, has been investing in Resonant Sciences since 2023.

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Defense Business Brief: The enduring case for small USVs | Battleship costs balloon | Rainey joins Bain Capital

Lauren C. Williams — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 02:33:00 -0400

Seasats CEO Mike Flanigan isn’t really interested in building ship-sized drone boats.

“We don't plan to build bigger systems,” Flanigan told Defense One.

Instead, Seasats is all in on small unmanned surface vessels with three variants: Lightfish, which is about 12 feet long; the 20-foot Quickfish; and Heavyfish, the company’s largest offering at 35 feet long. The latter will make its water debut later this year.

“All of our substantial business is on Lightfish, so that's really where 95 percent of our focus is. That's what's supporting Marine Corps, Navy, Special Forces…what we're doing internationally,” he said.

Quickfish, which is in production, serves as a “reactionary tool” that can be used to reposition an asset or intercept a target. And Heavyfish is “essentially a Lightfish, but stretched out, where you don't need an expeditionary force to carry it off a beach with no equipment,” Flanigan said. “You can fit significant amounts of payloads, both subsea and aerial.”

The San Diego-based company has long been working with the Navy and other militaries; one of its Lightfish vessels used for surveillance recently spotted a Chinese warship near the Philippines. Last year, a Lightfish traversed the Pacific from San Diego to mainland Japan autonomously.

There’s admittedly a lot of excitement, churn and chatter around larger USVs, but for Flanigan, smaller can be strategically important and avoid some of the pitfalls of building bigger.

“All of these platforms have this long endurance characteristic to them,” he said. “Small USVs have a strategic advantage against large platforms. [Vessels] under 40 feet are much harder to spot. They're much faster to build. You can use them with much less regret. So you actually end up with strategic value over something larger, like over 100 feet.”

And now that Navy doctrine and planning is starting to include maritime drones in more detail, there’s a rush to adopt.

“There's some understanding now that's like, oh, you can put vessels that are 12 feet long anywhere in the world,” Flanigan said.

And that’s good for business.

“Right now we're seeing huge adoption…definitely, we're in the thick of scaling and hiring” as “people are trying to move faster than each other.”

Welcome

Sticker shock: President Donald Trump’s battleship costs keep growing. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the nuclear-powered ship program would cost about $275 billion, with the first battleship costing about $23.4 billion—up significantly from the administration’s original $15.1 billion estimate. That cost would drop to about $18 billion per ship as the fleet of 15 are built through 2056, according to the CBO report released this week. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, ordered the CBO analysis.

For comparison: “A new DDG-51 destroyer costs more than $3 billion. Thus, if the average BBGN cost about $18 billion, the Navy could buy five destroyers for the price of one battleship.”
But those five destroyers would have higher maintenance and operational costs due to the need for more sailors and running on fossil fuel, the report states.
And any cost savings with respect to nuclear-powered versus fuel are undeterminable at the moment: “Switching to nuclear power would reduce the battleship’s operating costs over time by eliminating the need to purchase fuel. CBO does not have enough information to estimate those potential savings, which would depend on the final design of the ship and the specifications of the conventional propulsion plant it otherwise would have used.”
Related: In last week’s earnings call, HII CEO Chris Kastner said the company started initial “design work for the battleship” with the Navy “on a limited basis.”
The CBO report comes as the Pentagon pushes for a $1.5 trillion budget, ramped up weapons production, ambitious new programs like Golden Dome, and existing programs with cost overruns—even amid underlying concerns around transparency.
In the back of my mind: The White House push towards manufacturing is exposing a dearth of workers who can build the nation’s weapons systems—especially at an accelerated pace.

Making moves + other news

James Rainey, former commanding general of Army Futures Command, is now at Bain Capital.
Hadrian secured a $1.37 billion Series D funding round, pushing its valuation to just under $8 billion. The AI-factory builder plans to expand, adding new factories and production lines for things like munitions and autonomous systems.
Lockheed Martin is looking for domestic critical minerals suppliers. The defense giant signed a memorandum of understanding with NioCorp for the rare-earth metal scandium. Lockheed is also in talks with two companies, Teck Resources and 5N Plus, to supply germanium, Reuters reported.
Ondas landed a $50 million contract for the Army’s Lethal Unmanned Systems (LUS) program. The company’s prime defense contractor, Mistral, received the award as part of a $982 million contract for the program. Ondas also hired David Barnea, former director of Mossad, to be the company’s global president and chairman.
The Navy used a Saildrone USV to aid in a drug bust last year. The Voyager drone has been operating with Fourth Fleet for the past three years to support intelligence gathering and surveillance operations and was recently linked with an $81 million cocaine bust from a ship interdiction in October 2025.
Blue Water Autonomy will join a $40 million IDIQ contract to map the ocean floor with uncrewed surface vessels. The multiyear contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office involves multiple vendors that will compete for task orders.
The energy company Fuse inked a research deal with the Nevada National Security Site. “Fuse has built commercial capabilities at the frontier of pulsed power technologies, creating a unique opportunity to advance the field through collaborative research,” Daniel Lowe, NNSS’s chief scientist, said in a news release. “By combining Fuse’s demonstrated hardware with NNSS's technical expertise, we'll be able to evaluate emerging technologies, explore new approaches to dense plasma focus systems and generate insights that benefit both national security missions and the broader fusion community.”
Tiberius Aerospace is working with the Army to further develop the company’s “next-generation precision-guided, ramjet-powered 155mm artillery munition,” called Sceptre. The company signed a CRADA, or cooperative research and development agreement, with Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center.

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Attackers are targeting open-source AI just as Big Tech is embracing it

Patrick Tucker — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The future of AI will be driven in significant part by startups and small players using open-source software to make their own, cheaper, more efficient versions of Claude or ChatGPT, tech leaders finally admitted this week. For companies like AWS, the challenge now is protecting those public tools from increasingly sophisticated attacks from China, Russia, North Korea, or other players.

“Open-weight models—AI models that anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure—are an important part of that foundation because they make advanced AI more accessible, adaptable, and widely available,” reads a July 24 statement by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and co-signed by Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and a host of other companies.

How open won

The statement shows a dramatic reversal by companies that made fortunes off of proprietary software and have invested billions in OpenAI, Anthropic, and other frontier AI labs whose primary business is closed AI models. Dramatic, yes. But years in the making.

Satya Nadella illustrates how quickly sentiment among leading tech firms has changed. In 2024, the Microsoft CEO described proprietary models as critical to safety. Closed-source AI, he said, “allow[s] us to do deep end-to-end red-teaming, alignment, and safety evaluations before exposing them to the world.” Microsoft had invested $13 billion in OpenAI by that point.

AWS, another signatory of Huang’s statement, this week completed a $50 billion investment in OpenAI; the Amazon spinoff has also put money into rival lab Anthropic. Both of those investments were bets that the intellectual property of a small number of labs was going to be better and easier to safeguard than code made, often, by volunteers.

What has changed since 2024? Several things: A growing body of research showed that relatively cheap open-weight models were steadily catching up to the performance of closed ones. The American public is increasingly pessimistic about AI. The Pentagon wants AI that it can control and can operate without large, targetable data centers.

But for tech giants like Microsoft and AWS, the biggest change since 2024 is their evolution from provider of AI to provider of tools, space, and security for open-source and open-weight AI developers.

During Amazon’s earnings call on Thursday, CEO Andy Jassy, CEO Andy Jassy boasted of more than 10 models in Amazon’s Bedrock platform, which allows users to build their own generative models.

Nadella did the same on behalf of Microsoft this week. “We offer the broadest model catalog in the cloud, with over 11,000 models, including the latest from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, xAI,” and Microsoft itself.

Venture capitalist Chris Dixon in his 2025 book Read, Write, Own describes this phenomenon as “commoditizing the complement.” Big Tech’s recent open-source enthusiasm is not unlike Oracle’s support for the development of the open-source Linux operating system in 2006. Oracle’s strategy, as Dixon describes it, was to get volunteers to make and maintain an operating system that was cheaper than Microsoft Windows. And they did.

Today, Microsoft and AWS see themselves more and more not as the future’s most powerful builders of AI but sellers of tools, services, computing resources, etc., to a wide ecosystem of AI builders—including their own.

Among those services are AI tools like Microsoft Copilot and Amazon Inspector, which help find malware and vulnerabilities in builder code, including code from open-source libraries.

Poisoning the future

AWS said adversaries are increasingly turning to AI not just to find vulnerabilities in open-source code, but to poison those code libraries in ways even other AI security programs don’t detect; for instance, malware that only executes when a user issues a prompt that has a typo or that only works when other code is entered into the library later.

This dangerous code is often cloaked in helpful suggestions.

“How does that malicious package or software get into that open source?” asked Rick Anthony, Sr., who manages Amazon Inspector. “Attackers are gaining trust… They're going out and they're acting like real developers. You know, they're creating packages, and these packages are doing real useful benefits.”

These techniques are easier to execute with AI coding agents, Anthony said. “They can sit there and have very reasonable-looking contribution histories. They can have very useful release cycles, and before you know it, these attackers look like good citizens within the open-source community.”

Attackers are also exploiting the fact that more and more security reviews now happen via AI agents, which have weaknesses and blind spots. “What we're going to see is attackers not only try to fool the humans, but try to fool the AI by giving it enough evidence to convince it that what you're running is ‘OK.’”

China and Russia are in a great position to carry out such attacks because they don’t face penalties for running experiments on real-world targets, Amazon Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt said. he was He said he is “really concerned” about them.

AWS is employing red teams running with their own AI agents to find vulnerabilities in code before adversaries can exploit them, but also to attack emerging open-weight models, hoping to discover potential adversaries' tactics before adversaries do.

But finding a hole or vulnerability is only the first part of the challenge, Schmidt said. Developing an actually useful patch takes longer. So AWS is also looking to speed up sending its fixes to the problems it encounters, and then test them again against threats they haven’t yet thought of.

“We test the [patches] for not only performance but also the way that they respond to certain kinds of adverse behavior, because we know that the adversaries are going to go after them as soon as we release them to the public,” Schmidt said.

That, too, will become increasingly difficult for more and more organizations precisely because defenders are now using AI to find more vulnerabilities. Following Anthropic’s release of its powerful Mythos model to a handful of companies, the number of vulnerabilities researchers found and disclosed quickly doubled, as did the number of patches. Each new bug found is a victory, but it also increases the work to develop a good patch.

“We are running this as a security industry as a sprint—oh my gosh! You know this big thing called Mythos came out, and we’ve got to do all this vulnerability identification. This is going to be the long haul. We're going to be doing this forever” Schmidt said.

The ramifications of that for future software development, and AI model building in particular, are significant. New AI builders will have to invest in protective AI at the same rate they invest in building new tools, he said.

That’s one reason why not everyone is excited about the future of open-source models.

Anthropic is notably absent from Huang’s statement. The company’s CEO issued his own statement this week, stating that he isn’t for banning open-weight models outright, but he supports mandatory safety testing for all models, as well as other measures to curb China’s ability to copy powerful models like Mythos.

Anthropic researcher Julie Merz was more direct about the threat in a Sunday post on X: “This time next year there will be the internet hitting every rural hospital/city council/etc at once with crypto locker attacks,” she said. “I think there’s a shocking lack of imagination in a lot of the CEOs/influencers pushing open models.”

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HII’s sea drone business is growing, but revenue is ‘modest,’ CEO says

Lauren C. Williams — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:58:25 -0400

The nation’s largest military shipbuilder sees maritime drones producing “modest” revenue now, but expects that to grow as the Navy builds its unmanned fleet, HII’s chief executive said during Thursday’s earnings call.

“We know it’s going to become more of the Navy fleet because [unmanned systems] can do excess missions and expand the fleet size such that they can do things that large capital ships can’t do and take the place of large capital ships in some of the missions,” said Chris Kastner, HII’s CEO and president. “From a revenue standpoint right now, it’s pretty modest.”

Kastner went on to say that HII’s unmanned business, which is part of the Mission Technologies division, is growing quickly. Earlier this month, the Navy extended its Lionfish unmanned undersea contract that was originally awarded in 2023 for nearly $350 million. The contract is for five years with options, and the first units were delivered in 2025.

“I don’t really want to comment on how large it’s going to be, but I’ll tell you one thing—it’s the fastest-growing business unit we have,” Kastner said, adding that the company is competing for the Navy’s medium unmanned surface vehicle program.

“The international and domestic pipeline is strong, we’re going to pursue those…It’s a good business unit. It’s a growing business unit. The profitability should be solid because it’s firm fixed-price contracts. We think we’re very competitive, and we’re going to continue to invest in it and watch it grow. Now, is it going to be a billion-dollar battleship? No. We think it’s going to grow. We think there’s significant opportunity, and we think it’s going to be a greater part of the fleet.”

Sea drones have become increasingly visible on the battlefield as navies use them for surveillance, rescues, and kinetic strikes. And more companies have entered the sector as the Navy boosts its unmanned systems budget and homes in on how it wants to integrate them into its fleet—while pushing companies to grow the capacity to build them quickly.

HII has emphasized its tech business more in recent years, often stressing the segment’s poised growth. Mission Technologies had $760 million in second-quarter revenue this year, an approximate $31 million and nearly 4 percent drop compared to last year.

That’s “primarily due to lower volumes in all domain operations in global security, partially offset by higher volumes in warfare systems and unmanned systems,” Tom Stiehle, HII’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, said during Thursday’s call.

The Mission Technologies business is expected to grow about 5 percent in the next five years and generate up to $3.2 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2026, according to the company’s earnings update.

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Anthropic confirms its AI breached 3 organizations during testing

Alexandra Kelley — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 09:40:00 -0400

Anthropic’s flagship artificial intelligence model Claude gained unauthorized access to the networks of three different organizations, the company announced following internal cybersecurity audits of its routine model evaluations.

In a press release posted Thursday, Anthropic said that, following the containment breach of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-5.6 and subsequent attack on Hugging Face’s systems, Anthropic conducted an audit of its own model evaluations. The findings revealed that, out of 141,006 examined evaluations of Claude models dating back to April, there were three incidents where a model accessed the internet from within or while interacting with the third-party evaluators.

Each attack occurred during a “capture-the-flag” scenario where the models are asked to find hidden information housed within a different node.

In the blog post, Anthropic blamed a “misunderstanding” between them and their third-party evaluators that granted the models internet access. The models were told in prompts that they would not have real internet access and therefore operated under the premise that all accessible systems were part of the test environment.

“Operating under the false belief that all accessible entities were intended to be in-scope for the exercise, Claude compromised the impacted organizations’ infrastructure using basic techniques, such as exploiting weak passwords and unauthenticated endpoints,” the post reads. “It did not find or exploit any complex vulnerabilities, and in each case, Claude continued working to complete only the specific capture-the-flag task its evaluation had assigned.”

The models involved in the incidents were Opus 4.7, Mythos 5, and an unnamed internal research test model that isn’t planned for release. Anthropic stated that, despite accessing the internet as part of its cybersecurity testing, the models did not deliberately attempt to leave their training environments; accessing the internet only occurred as they looked to complete their tasks.

In one incident, Opus 4.7 executed the task on the real-world networks of a company once it realized it could via internet access.

A second incident was more extensive. Mythos 5 sought to find information by referencing software development instructions inside a fictional environment. It used these instructions to install a Python package from a public registry that didn’t actually exist in the hopes that the fictional company would automatically download it, thus granting the model access to its networks. In order to do this, it created login credentials a human user would need.

That Python package was inadvertently uploaded to the internet, where 15 systems downloaded it and compromised their systems.

The third incident saw the prototype model scan real targets after being unable to find the fictional target included in the test.

Anthropic noted that, when the models were able to discern that the attacks affected real systems, they halted their testing processes—something that, in part, the company said, gives it “cautious optimism.”

“Several defense-in-depth measures, on both our side and our partner’s, could have prevented these incidents or at least reduced their likelihood of occurring,” the post read. “Both we and our partner also could have reviewed evaluation transcripts or network logs more thoroughly. It’s also possible that a prompt which told Claude it did have internet access would have changed how Claude behaved when it came into contact with real systems.”

In the aftermath of the breaches, Anthropic is working with its evaluation partner, Irregular, and METR, an independent AI evaluation organization, to continue conducting reviews. It is also working alongside affected companies whose systems were compromised.

Anthropic concluded by saying it encourages other AI developers to conduct similar audits and that evaluation exercises in general need stronger oversight and safeguards.

“Ultimately, many factors contributed to these incidents, but, consistent with a blameless postmortem culture, we’re approaching the fixes as if the responsibility were ours alone,” the post reads.

Industry peers characterized Anthropic’s revelations on the heels of OpenAI’s incident as a burgeoning pattern cyberdefenders should heed.

Tom Kellermann, the vice president of AI Security and Threat Research at TrendAI, said that these incidents underscore the continued need for safeguards even in secure sandbox environments.

“Anthropic and OpenAI just proved that when you strip guardrails for testing, you’re not creating a sandbox, you’re inviting systemic risk,” Kellermann said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW. “Every organization deploying agentic AI needs to ask itself if their evaluation environment is actually contained. Containment and monitoring are no longer optional.”

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Defense Business Brief: Handshake deals > plane orders?; Inside the aerospace supply chain, plus thoughts on that critical minerals EO

Lauren C. Williams — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:50:05 -0400

Maybe it was just me, but there seemed to be more handshake deals between companies than airplane buys—military and commercial—at last week’s Farnborough International Airshow.

As a Farnborough first-timer, I had very few expectations. I guessed there likely wouldn’t be as many aircraft flying because of surging fuel prices and the Iran war. And the NATO Summit already had several major announcements.

But given the fanfare, should there have been more big buys trumpeted? Or are industry deals—showcasing how willing companies are to collaborate—the new normal?

“There are always partnerships being announced, but I think it was more of a lack of the large order announcements that we typically see that made them more visible,” said Grant Holve, a commercial aerospace analyst for Forecast International, a sibling brand of Defense One that provides market analysis and intelligence. “It was a 50-50 split between commercial and defense this year…usually it's like 80-20 or 70-30 tilted toward commercial.”

The lack of big purchase announcements coupled with the strong European defense spending backdrop seemed curious to me. But a theme emerged: dual-use commercial aircraft venturing into the defense arena.

“Commercial crossovers into defense aerospace seemed to be an identifiable theme. That was a takeaway I noticed specifically with the ‘contested logistics’ space for air taxi companies,” said Jon Hemler, director of Forecast International's military aerospace and weapons division.

Those eVTOL makers definitely made a splash, from Archer Aviation’s snazzy black and gold chalet (and partnership with Anduril) to Sikorsky teaming with Beta Technologies’ MV250 on autonomous cargo aircraft.

“It's increasingly an area where civil firms can partner with defense companies as an entry point to the market,” Hemler said.

Welcome

A boom for the aerospace supply chain. The more electrified and digitally-infused aircraft get, the more parts they need. That’s good business for distributors like FDH Aero, which team up with multiple suppliers to bulk buy, store and sell parts to customers.

“There's a lot more digital components, connectors, wires than there were two decades ago,” thanks to the electrification of aircraft and increasingly complex digital environments, CEO Ian Walsh told Defense One at the Farnborough airshow. “And because defense and commercial are growing very sharply, there's a huge pull on the supply chain to keep up with that.”
That demand can put a lot of strain on suppliers as commercial companies cross over to sell more to militaries.
“Imagine an [original equipment manufacturer] that's building helicopters for commercial [customers], and now this military customer wants 250 helicopters…they basically have to double their production, so it's putting a lot of strain on the supply chain to keep up,” he said. “We are seeing and benefiting from the fact that we're really good at what we do. We source long-lead time parts. We know our customers’ build rates in production, so we're really able to plan.”
Plus, drones need parts too: “If you'd been here a decade ago, if somebody mentioned the word ‘drone’ or ‘unmanned,’ they would look at you kind of funny. And I think every single booth [here] has some connection or product that's now tied to unmanned drones, eVTOLs. So that's a whole new frontier.”
But at the end of the day, while the “brains” of the newer, possibly autonomous, aircraft may differ, “an airframe is an airframe, whether it's going into space or it's landing vertically or landing on a runway. They all have connectors, rivets, bolts, connectors, fasteners—a bunch of little components all over it. I mean, there's just hundreds of thousands of those pieces all over that aircraft.”

Quick turnaround. Last week’s executive order on critical minerals will push defense contractors to get clear visibility into their supply chains by next year—a timeframe that caused much consternation. But could it be the push that prime contractors need? Can the industrial base risk waiting longer?

“It’s a critical element of sovereignty for us to be able to make sure that we can create deterrence through our industrial base,” said Chris Morton, who leads aerospace and defense business for IFS, which provides AI-fueled enterprise software and asset management for industrial businesses.
But “directing prime contractors, essentially, to rationalize their entire supply chain all the way to the bottom…it’s a Herculean undertaking.”
Morton said that type of visibility isn’t common among prime defense contractors, but getting that insight could lead the industry to uncomfortable, but necessary discoveries.
“I think there’s gonna be a whole lot of surprises. In the Army, we used to say that one of the first parts of operational planning is knowing yourself. And this effort is really that first step. We may discover some things that we are not happy about. But it’s a critical part of this effort because how can you know what materials you need to source and components you need to manufacture if you don’t really know what goes into your supply chain? We’ll see how the defense primes respond to this, because this is not an easy undertaking, not one bit.”
Related reading: In a July 22 report, the Government Accountability Office evaluated ways to reduce imported critical mineral reliance and recommended four policy changes to help that: creating domestic manufacturing capacity; building more infrastructure for battery and semiconductor recycling; making it secure; and investing in research and testing.
And another thing: The Trump administration plans to ban robots and inverters made in China and certain other nations, to bolster U.S. efforts in the sector.

Making moves + other news

A revolving door in reverse? The Pentagon wants to bring in more people from the private sector into defense acquisition and procurement roles through a new hiring program. But that could cause “significant conflict of interest” that’s layered with “corruption concerns” and “national security implications,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, CNBC reported.
- Related: Feinberg has been scrutinized for at least appearing to benefit financially from his post alongside other members of the Trump administration. Earlier this week, Sen. Warren sent a separate letter to Feinberg re-upping concerns from April about his financial ties to the firm he co-founded, Cerberus Capital Management, and oversight of the Golden Dome for America project.

Defense technology company Tagup wins a Marine Corps contract to help streamline equipment maintenance and repairs for 1st Maintenance Battalion in California. No dollar amount was listed, but Tagup’s Manifest AI platform uses a trove of data to see where all the parts for a given piece of gear come from, anticipate demand in an uncertain environment, and help troops plan for deployments.
- “Every maintenance decision requires balancing readiness, cost, and time,” Paul Plemmons, president of Tagup, said in a news release.
- “Manifest gives maintainers the decision advantage to weigh those tradeoffs and commit to the course of action that best keeps mission-essential equipment ready and available.”
Leonardo DRS to buy tech company Raft for $450 million.
Leidos wins $717 million Air Force contract for ISR support for Air Combat Command. The contract extends work the company has done since 2019.
The think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments added Phil Davidson and Anita Antenucci as the board chair and vice chair, respectively.
- Davidson is the former commander of Indo-Pacific Command and has been on CSBA’s board for four years.
- Antenucci has served on the board for nearly eight years and founded the investment banking firm 3Wire Partners.

One more thing: A Seasats drone boat caught footage of a Chinese warship near the Philippines, Reuters reported.

Jennifer Hlad contributed to this report.

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The Army didn’t want this striking rotorcraft, but could it be what NATO needs?

Lauren C. Williams — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:44:30 -0400

FARNBOROUGH, England—Two years ago, the Army changed its mind about buying a new attack helicopter. Now, one of the finalists in that canceled effort is pitching its tech to NATO.

“We called that Raider-X for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program for the U.S. Army. I ran that aircraft chained to the ground, getting ready to go do a flight test in that aircraft. Our competitor, Bell Helicopter, built the Invictus helicopter. And the Army canceled the program. So we never got to fly that aircraft,” said Bill Fell, test pilot for Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.

The S-97 Raider helicopter was center stage in front of Lockheed Martin’s megachalet at the international airshow here last week. The display comes as Europe grows its industrial base and NATO increases its defense spending, presenting U.S. companies with the challenge of making their bids more attractive to allies.

Sikorsky is weighing a bid on NATO’s Next Generation Rotorcraft Capability program alongside European-based Airbus and Leonardo with U.S.-based Bell, which were chosen to develop prototype designs for the aircraft. Leonardo and Bell have expressed willingness to collaborate on the program.

Boeing is also considering a bid for NGRC, assessing “the competition as customer requirements and specifications are refined,” a company spokesperson told Defense One.

“We're looking for the right customer now,” Sikorsky’s Fell said. “We're looking at the requirements and evaluating that now. We're also considering a prospective program in South Korea.”

Sikorsky has said it would produce the NGRC aircraft in Europe, similar to other aerospace companies looking to expand business on the continent.

The company flew a bigger version of the aircraft, created with Boeing, called the Defiant in 2019. That helicopter lost its bid for the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program.

The stacked, or coaxial, rotors makes the Raider, which can reach up to 240 knots, visually striking. Russia’s Kamov debuted a coaxial helicopter at Farnborough in the 1990s, versions of which still fly today.

The dual-rotors promote fast, low-altitude flight and prevent retreating blade stall.

“There's a natural speed limit to helicopters,” Fell said. “The airflows end up being such that the outboard few feet of the retreating disc has to produce the same amount of lift as the advancing disc entire blade does—with much higher velocities over it as well. And so, in normal helicopters, you get in high-speed flight, and eventually you get to the point where you've gone so fast that that retreating half of the disc just can't keep up anymore. It can't produce the right amount of lift, and we call that retreating blade stall.”

Fell said Sikorsky’s X-2 technology addresses that by having an “advancing half on each side” where the high-velocity airflow that comes over the disc can be counterbalanced or somewhat discounted on the retreating side.

So, going fast isn’t a problem, but the system isn’t as efficient as a tiltrotor.

“This technology is never going to be as efficient as a tiltrotor, and I think the Army wanted the additional speed that they could get out of that, and it also goes fast a little more efficiently,” Fell said.

Raider is for the military customer that wants to go fast and decelerate just as quickly, he argued.

“Any time you're coming in somewhere where they're shooting at you, or you are afraid they're going to shoot at you, you can decelerate more quickly in this aircraft and minimize the amount of time that somebody's shooting at you. I think that's a good thing,” Fell said.

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