Pentagon's munitions surge 💣, Sila's $1.4B loan ⛏️, Raytheon's $745M SM-3 🚀

Sila Nanotechnologies lands $1.4B Office of Strategic Capital loan

The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital committed $1.4 billion to Sila Nanotechnologies, the single largest award in a $3 billion critical-minerals package announced Aug. 8. Sila, a venture-backed maker of silicon-anode battery materials, will use the loan to scale its Moses Lake, Washington plant and cut reliance on China. OSC writing a nine-figure-plus check to one VC-backed company marks its shift from pilot program to real growth-stage financing source.

Washington commits $3B across critical-minerals firms, backing Sunrise and Niron

Alongside Sila, OSC pledged $400 million to scandium producer Sunrise Energy Metals and $150 million to magnet developer Niron Magnetics at the same roundtable. The Export-Import Bank added $58 million across Westwater Resources, Global Advanced Metals and 5E Advanced Materials, part of a strategic-minerals reserve valued near $12 billion. Washington is now co-underwriting the mining-and-processing layer China dominates, de-risking capital-intensive projects venture money alone won't fund.

GDIT wins $1.3B Army National Guard network and cybersecurity contract

General Dynamics unit GDIT won a $1.3 billion contract, announced Aug. 7, to operate and defend the Army National Guard's classified and unclassified networks. The Enterprise Network Operations and Cybersecurity Support award carries a one-year base and six option years, covering new operations centers and network modernization. Guard IT is a steady incumbent franchise, a reminder that services money still dwarfs most hardware programs even in a startup-heavy cycle.

Raytheon lands $745M to build SM-3 Block IIA interceptors for US and Japan

The Missile Defense Agency awarded Raytheon a $745 million undefinitized contract Aug. 7 to build SM-3 Block IIA all-up rounds for the US and Japan. The exoatmospheric interceptor is the top layer of the Aegis ballistic-missile-defense system, co-developed with Japan and central to regional and homeland defense. Sustained SM-3 buys show how allied co-production and Golden Dome demand keep interceptor lines running hot.

Army gives University of Alaska Fairbanks $499M for nuclear-proliferation sensing

The Army awarded the University of Alaska Fairbanks a $499 million IDIQ Aug. 7 to run a research center for the geophysical detection of nuclear proliferation. The five-year effort taps Alaska's Arctic geophysics expertise for the sensing that underpins treaty monitoring and nuclear-threat warning. Half-billion-dollar UARC awards show how much detection and ISR science the Pentagon still routes through universities rather than industry.

SpaceX flies 50th California mission of 2026 as West Coast cadence surges

A Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Aug. 8 with 24 Starlink satellites, SpaceX's 50th launch from California this year. The booster, B1093, had flown 15 prior missions including two Space Development Agency Transport Layer deliveries before landing downrange on a droneship. West Coast throughput is climbing as East Coast pads slow for Starship work, and that polar-capable cadence is what military constellations increasingly depend on.

Katalyst regains control of LINK as NASA's Swift rescue slips to late August

Katalyst Space Technologies reported progress stabilizing LINK, its servicing spacecraft, after an attitude-control failure left two of three reaction wheels inoperable and degraded its cold-gas thrusters. Engineers cut the vehicle's spin from 9 degrees per second to roughly 4 using electric propulsion, and are writing a new controller for its reduced capability. Satellite servicing is a priority capability for both NASA and the Space Force, and LINK is a live test of whether startups can recover a crippled asset in orbit.

Pentagon gives industry 21 days to plan a dramatic weapons-production surge

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg ordered contractors on Aug. 8 to propose "significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules" for critical capabilities, giving them 21 days to respond. The Iran war has drained stockpiles — more than 850 Tomahawks fired in the first month, with the Army's ATACMS and PrSM inventories nearly exhausted. "Years-long development cycles are not acceptable," Feinberg wrote, the clearest signal yet that speed now beats incumbency in munitions.

Senate stopgap freezes Pentagon at FY26 and rejects battleship, munitions add-ons

The Senate passed a bipartisan continuing resolution 90-6 on Aug. 8, funding the government through Dec. 11 and averting an Oct. 1 shutdown pending House approval. The measure holds Pentagon spending at fiscal 2026 levels, forbids new-start programs, and rejected White House requests to plus up the Trump-class battleship and munitions accounts. A CR barring new starts sits awkwardly beside a Pentagon demanding surge output, and that contradiction is the budget story to watch this fall.

Russia is now cocooning its nuclear ballistic-missile submarines in anti-drone nets in port.

The White House convened Lockheed Martin and RTX executives to press for quadrupled output of high-end weapons.

Blue Origin traced the New Glenn pad explosion to an engine issue, its first public explanation.

The Air Force is winding down the A-10 Warthog Weapons School as it divests the close-air-support jet.