Castelion's $1B round 🚀, Hanwha's K9 cannon win 🎯, Golden Dome snub 🛡️

Castelion raises $1B Series C to mass-produce low-cost hypersonic weapons

Castelion raised a $1 billion Series C to scale low-cost hypersonic-missile production, with Carlyle joining existing backers — roughly triple its $350 million December Series B. The California startup verticalizes design, testing, and manufacturing to drive down the price of strike weapons the Pentagon wants in volume. A billion-dollar round for a company founded in 2022 shows capital chasing magazine depth, not just autonomy and software.

Silent Ventures closes $85M Fund II with Singerman's GPx as anchor

Solo GP Jackson Moses's Silent Ventures closed an $85 million Fund II for early-stage defense and deep-tech bets, anchored by Brian Singerman and Lee Linden's GPx fund. Silent claims exposure to 14 defense and deep-tech unicorns across its first fund and affiliate vehicles. GPx routing capital through a specialist seed manager signals big money wants the earliest defense deals without building its own seed team.

Hanwha wins Army Mobile Tactical Cannon deal worth up to $262M

The Army picked Hanwha Defense USA to build six wheeled K9 howitzer prototypes under its Mobile Tactical Cannon program, worth up to $262 million. The four-year deal carries an option for 12 more guns, and Hanwha is opening an integration and test site in Opelika, Alabama. A Korean prime localizing artillery work in Alabama, on a program meant to replace towed M777s, is allied industrial base in practice.

Tern AI wins $11.3M Army SBIR Phase III for GPS-free positioning

The Army awarded Austin-based Tern AI an $11.3 million firm-fixed-price SBIR Phase III contract for its Independently Derived Positioning System plus a vehicle health and maintenance system. Tern's IDPS navigates on onboard sensors and map data alone, holding position when GPS is jammed or spoofed, and it won the Army's xTechOverwatch competition last November. A sole-bid Phase III award is how SBIR work graduates into a real program of record.

Portal's Starburst-1 declared flight-ready with a record superconducting actuator

Portal Space Systems said its Starburst-1 spacecraft is flight-ready, carrying Zenno's Supertorquer — billed as the most powerful superconducting magnetic actuator ever flown — for fuel-free attitude control. Launching on a SpaceX rideshare in Q4, the ESPA-class vehicle targets rapid maneuver and rendezvous-and-proximity operations that national-security operators increasingly want. Superconducting magnets that steer satellites without propellant could reset how long maneuverable spacecraft stay useful on orbit.

Firefly to fly Zeno Power's nuclear heater to survive the lunar night

Firefly Aerospace will fly a Zeno Power radioisotope heating unit on a 2028 Blue Ghost lunar mission to test survival through the Moon's 14-day night. Zeno's unit runs on americium-241 rather than scarce plutonium-238, a supply-chain choice with implications well beyond the Moon. Fieldable radioisotope power is a dual-use prize, keeping sensors and platforms alive where solar and batteries fail.

Pentagon's Golden Dome office refuses to brief the CBO on its plans

The CBO says the Pentagon's Golden Dome office has repeatedly declined its briefing requests, leaving Congress's scorekeeper unable to independently cost the missile-defense program. CBO earlier pegged a notional national missile shield at up to $1.2 trillion over two decades, a figure the Pentagon rejects as built on wrong assumptions. Stonewalling the CBO deepens the transparency fight over the administration's costliest new defense initiative.

Private equity's defense deals may draw sharper oversight after the midterms

Private-equity investment across the defense industrial base could face tougher congressional scrutiny after the midterms, especially if Democrats gain subpoena power to probe fees, conflicts, and rollups. The concern sharpens as the Pentagon seeks about $20.2 billion for its Office of Strategic Capital in FY27, up from roughly $1.2 billion. For founders and funds, deal structure and ownership are becoming diligence and political risks, not just financial ones.

Israeli suicide-drone maker UVision lost its CFO as its ~$3.5B Nasdaq IPO hit valuation resistance.

HPQ Silicon and Novacium landed a first order for silicon-anode battery packs powering FPV drones for a French Army regiment.

Rocket Lab will test an in-orbit connection to a Space Force data network in 2027.

Kelvin Hughes, trading as Hensoldt North America, won a $57.3M sole-source DLA contract for Army eyesafe laser rangefinders.