Starcloud's $250M orbit 🛰️, Navy's AIM-424 Malice 🚀, Saab unveils CCA 🛩️

Starcloud raises $250M at a $2.3B valuation to put GPUs in orbit

Starcloud closed a $250 million Series A extension at a $2.3 billion post-money valuation led by Manhattan West, with NVIDIA and Cisco Investments joining as new backers. The Redmond, Washington company has raised $450 million since 2024, flew the first NVIDIA H100 to orbit in November 2025, and is co-developing NVIDIA's Space-1 Vera Rubin module. Its valuation more than doubled in under five months, a sign investors now treat orbital compute as national-security infrastructure rather than a science project.

SpaceWERX names 11 companies to a $562.5M STRATFI cohort

SpaceWERX named 11 companies to its 2026 STRATFI cohort, a $562.5 million round of awards of which $245 million was matched by private capital. Winners include Antares Nuclear on microreactors, Star Catcher on orbital power beaming, Kall Morris on debris removal, ThinkOrbital on in-space assembly, plus Muon Space and Hydrosat. STRATFI matches SpaceWERX dollars against outside investment, historically $1.9 billion private against $700 million government, so an award reads as a demand signal.

Erik Prince launches Vectus to sell air defense as a service

Erik Prince launched Vectus Air Defense Systems, taking 80% of a new venture that sells layered air defense as an operated service, with Swarmer holding the other 20%. Vectus plans to design, integrate and run radars, sensors, electronic warfare, interceptors and large-caliber cannons for military and private customers, while Swarmer contributes swarming autonomy software. Outsourcing air defense the way firms outsource cybersecurity is untested, but it targets the operator shortage that hardware alone cannot fix.

Pentagon sets a December directed-energy shoot-off at Yuma

JIATF-401 will run a 365-day directed-energy pilot putting high-energy lasers and high-power microwave systems in service members' hands at five installations, from Fort Bliss to Grand Forks. Brig. Gen. Matt Ross said a December shoot-off, held with the Pentagon's research office, will deliberately include young companies rather than down-selecting to one or two systems. Ross says they are trying to structure it so a successful demo immediately triggers a purchase order, making the event a revenue moment.

Corvid Technologies takes a $33.9M sole-source NMESIS award

Corvid Technologies won a $33.9 million indefinite-delivery contract to supply the weapon sled assembly for the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, running through August 2034. The Mooresville, North Carolina firm took the award sole-source, and NMESIS is the anti-ship missile battery the Marines are fielding across the first island chain. A sole-source hold on a marquee Pacific program is the kind of ground primes, not small suppliers, usually occupy.

Sandtable wins a $45.3M Army wargaming ceiling on a single bid

Sandtable, a small business in Roswell, Georgia, won a $45.3 million five-year Army contract for integrated mission planning and wargaming support, with one bid solicited and one received. Work locations and funding are set at the task-order level, so the award is a ceiling rather than a defined program of record. An uncontested five-year ceiling on Army mission planning is a durable beachhead, and the single bid says few competitors even showed up.

Navy pulls the AIM-424 Malice long-range missile into the open

The Navy publicly revealed the Raytheon-built AIM-424 Malice at the Tailhook Symposium, a long-range air-to-air missile its own fact file puts at over 250 nautical miles. Released photos show it loaded in an F-35C weapons bay, something the wider-winged AIM-174B cannot do; it is also slated for the Super Hornet and F/A-XX. Pulling a very-long-range missile out of the black world signals the counter-air fight now starts hundreds of miles before the merge.

Saab unveils a stealthy supersonic collaborative combat aircraft

Saab unveiled a full-scale model of the A3-001, a tailless supersonic low-observable collaborative combat aircraft, at the Swedish Air Force's centenary at Malmen Air Base. Saab says demonstrators with fighter-like characteristics will fly before 2030, with the operational aircraft built for electronic warfare, SEAD and precision strike. Programs chief Peter Nilsson pegs life-cycle cost at roughly a third of a Gripen's, which is real price pressure on the American CCA programs startups are chasing.

SpaceX flies its 100th orbital mission of 2026

SpaceX flew its 100th orbital mission of 2026 on Saturday, launching 29 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg on booster B1100's ninth flight, which debuted carrying NROL-105. The landing was the 653rd Falcon booster recovery overall, and Elon Musk said Starlink now exceeds 11,000 satellites on orbit. Hitting a hundred launches before September sets the cadence baseline every national-security payload schedule is now quietly planned against.

State clears a $364M air-to-air APKWS sale to Italy

The State Department approved a possible $364 million sale to Italy of 5,031 air-to-air APKWS-II guidance sections, with launchers, warheads and rocket motors. An APKWS guidance section runs roughly $15,000 against more than $1 million for an AIM-120, and a seven-shot pod fits where one missile would. Allied air forces buying cheap guided rockets for counter-drone work is the clearest signal yet that interceptor cost-per-kill now drives procurement.

Army shuts down its experimental drone battalion in Europe

The Army is ending its experimental drone battalion in Europe less than a year after converting an airborne infantry unit into a dedicated unmanned formation. The battalion returns to its infantry mission once Exercise Saber Junction wraps in September, with drone skills pushed back into conventional units. Read it as the Army choosing to distribute drones rather than build a separate branch, which changes who writes the requirement.

Army cyber wants its own budget line for AI defenders

Brandon Pugh, who certifies the Army's cyber budget, said AI needs dedicated funding lines because Army Cyber Command cannot pay for it out of its operational budget. An April industry tabletop produced 17 to 20 candidate capabilities and spawned Project ARDCS, now narrowed to three efforts led by Project Griffin's autonomous threat-response agents. A commercial solicitation is already posted, so the budget fight and the buy are running in parallel, fast for a capability with no line item.

Japan's Letara raised a ¥2.6B (~$16M) pre-Series A for hybrid rocket engines, eyeing both space and defense use cases.

Germany's Polaris flew the MIRA III demonstrator for its Diehl-partnered Cobra 600 interceptor drone 20 kilometers, pylon fitted but unarmed.

Cleveland-Cliffs will invest $1 billion at Middletown Works, half covered by a rescoped $500 million Energy Department grant.

State also cleared $2.3 billion in UH-60M Black Hawks for Norway and $125 million in AIM-9X missiles for South Korea.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao warned of coordinated doxing, drone activity and surveillance targeting sailors and installations.

India opened talks with France on joining the FCAS sixth-generation fighter program.