Laser downs cartel drones 🔫, BAE's $167M VLS 🚀, Energy Fuels + ASM ⛏️

Energy Fuels closes its Australian Strategic Materials acquisition

Energy Fuels completed its purchase of Australian Strategic Materials on Friday, paying 0.053 Energy Fuels CDIs plus A$0.13 in cash per share and delisting ASM from the ASX. The deal adds the Korean Metals Plant at Ochang, with 1,300 tonnes a year of NdFeB alloy capacity and an expansion targeting 3,600 tonnes by end-2026. A US uranium and rare-earth processor now owns finished magnet alloy, closing the one link China still controls.

Firehawk takes a $24M Pentagon IBAS agreement for artillery propellant

Firehawk signed a $24 million agreement last week with the Pentagon's Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program to supply propellant for 155mm artillery. The company 3D-prints solid rocket fuel, and IBAS money is the government's preferred instrument for standing up second sources inside choked munitions lines. Propellant, not shell bodies, is the binding constraint on 155mm output, so non-dilutive capital here buys capacity the primes have not added.

BAE takes a $167.5M Navy modification for MK 41 launcher design agent work

BAE Systems Land & Armaments, of Maple Grove, Minnesota, received a $167,496,594 modification for MK 41 Vertical Launching System design agent support. Options would take the action to $343.3 million, and the work splits Navy at 76% and Japan at 24% under Foreign Military Sales. Every interceptor the Golden Dome architecture buys has to fit a cell BAE maintains.

Extant Aerospace wins a $147.3M ceiling for ALE-47 countermeasure dispensers

Symetrics Industries, doing business as Extant Aerospace of Melbourne, Florida, won a maximum $147,310,777 indefinite-delivery contract for ALE-47 countermeasure dispenser production, running to August 2032. The award was competitive with two offers received, funded through Navy aircraft procurement and defense working capital, and carries Foreign Military Sales on individual orders. Chaff and flare dispensers are unglamorous, but a six-year sole production ceiling on a fleet-wide survivability box is durable revenue.

Resilient Energy lands a $49M Army SBIR Phase III for expeditionary microgrids

Resilient Energy and Infrastructure, a small business in Madison, Tennessee, won a $49,060,000 indefinite-delivery contract under SBIR Phase III for rapid-deployment hybrid microgrids and modular energy storage. One bid was solicited and one received, with work running to August 2031 and locations set at the order level. Phase III is the sole-source bridge that turns an SBIR winner into a program dependency, and expeditionary power is now a funded line.

Army laser downs three cartel drones on the southern border

Joint Task Force Southern Border disclosed Friday that an AeroVironment-built Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser destroyed three drones over the Rio Grande Valley on August 25 and 26. AMP-HEL is a roughly 20-kilowatt LOCUST-class prototype delivered to the Army in December 2025. This is the first publicly confirmed operational directed-energy engagement inside the homeland, which moves lasers from demo budgets to fielded procurement.

Falcon Heavy launches NASA's Roman Space Telescope on its 13th flight

A Falcon Heavy lifted off Sunday at 7:26 a.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 39A, deploying the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope toward L2 thirty-one minutes later. Both side boosters landed at Cape Canaveral and the center core was expended, BAE Systems built the science instruments. Falcon Heavy cadence is the quiet variable in National Security Space Launch Lane 2 manifesting, where heavy-lift slots remain the scarce good.

Russia's jet-powered Geran-4 flies a record 960 kilometers into Ukraine

A jet-powered Geran-4 launched from occupied Crimea covered roughly 960 kilometers before being downed over Volyn, well past its assessed 850-kilometer range. It is the first to reach far-western Ukraine, and analysts calculate that 96% of the country now sits inside that radius. A cheap jet one-way attack drone erasing the concept of a deep rear is the clearest demand signal yet for layered low-cost interceptors.

Trump signs an executive order creating a US Space Academy

The president signed an order Friday at Johnson Space Center establishing a US Space Academy. A commission chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will recommend its governance, curriculum, admissions and permanent site. Free tuition with most slots earmarked for NASA and civilian roles makes this a federally funded talent subsidy for the commercial space industrial base.

WSJ reports an OSC equity stake in a Venezuelan oil venture, and the Pentagon denies it

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Office of Strategic Capital would take a 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners through penny warrants. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied it, saying OSC provides only loans, guarantees and technical assistance, not equity. Whether OSC can hold equity is the live question for every founder modeling its term sheets.

Joint Chiefs warn Hegseth that the Iran campaign is hollowing out readiness

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Gen. Dan Caine and other senior officers warned the secretary that sustained operations against Iran are degrading readiness for a China contingency. About 25% of Navy destroyers are ready to deploy, the Air Force has lost a quarter of its MQ-9 fleet, and regional bases have taken billions in damage. Those numbers are the strongest public case for the $67 billion stockpile supplemental.

Q-CTRL ran the first GPS-free quantum gravimetric maritime navigation trial, holding one nautical mile over 83 kilometers.

NASA added $20 million for Infleqtion's quantum gravity gradiometer, taking total agency investment to $40 million.

Congress returns to a CR deadline, stalled FY27 appropriations, a $60 billion reconciliation tranche and a $67 billion supplemental.

Space-Eyes took an exclusive option to buy Navy engineering firm KMS Solutions ahead of its McKinley SPAC merger.