“We are in active conversations with many of the stakeholders who are relevant to things like Replicator and we’re excited to collaborate with the government when the time is right,” Saronic exec Rob Lehman told Breaking Defense.
By Aaron MehtaMILSATCOM for the most critical no-fail missions
With multiple nuclear-capable threats and space itself being a contested domain, assured and protected MILSATCOM are more critical than ever before.
“I can’t really imagine a world where something like a Joint Strike Fighter program goes to a privately traded company,” Luckey told Breaking Defense. “I can’t imagine that ever happening.”
By Aaron Mehta
“We are witnessing a cultural shift. Engineers want to work on problems for the DoD. We’re going to have an explosion of defense technology. Capital is following the engineers and following DoD opening of the aperture who want innovation,” said Alex Moore, partner at 8VC.
By Andrew White
“If we are to meet the innovation goals of the NDS, we must incentivize the primes to move beyond the short-term partnership model and encourage them to form more holistic relationships with promising early-stage companies, including investment into operating businesses,” writes Chip Walter.
By Chip Walter
An investment into a startup like Hermeus that is looking at commercial hypersonic tech could lead to leap-ahead approaches that benefit defense applications.
By Valerie Insinna
Despite investments of nearly $200 billion in commercial space since 2012, the US will lose what the authors paint as a vital race with China without more strategic vision, study sponsored by DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit says.
By Theresa Hitchens
Advances in radar are key to countering the modern drone warfare and missile threat
Drones, high-speed cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles attacking together from 360° creates complexity only certain radars can handle.
The F-35 aside, the report recommends that the Air Force “resist future participation in any joint aircraft procurement or development programs.”
By Theresa Hitchens
It’s sort of like we’re exclusively dating. We agreed to not see other people right now but we haven’t committed to anything else yet,” explained one Lockheed Martin official.
By Theresa Hitchens
“There’s a massive scramble for autonomy engineers, software — you name it,” says Chris Moran, Lockheed Martin executive director.
By Theresa Hitchens
Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided each service makes an open-source library available.
By Kelsey Atherton
“In space, particularly, we’ve got to have a model that is very different than the one we used the last century,” Roper summed up. “We’re going to need to evaluate companies that have the potential to commercialize successfully as a delineator of who we partner with.”
By Theresa Hitchens
The Air Force’s new investment strategy is designed to “catalyze the commercial market by bringing our military market to bear,” says Roper.
By Theresa Hitchens
Of 20 commercial startups the Techstars Air Force Accelerator has helped, 19 have gone on to win a collective $20-plus million in DoD Small Business Innovation Research contracts.
By Theresa Hitchens
Masao Dahlgren in this op-ed offers reasons why venture capitalists and the Pentagon aren’t yet on the same page, and calls for them to work together so that both can reap the benefits.
By Masao Dahlgren