TITAN = production 🎯, Navy's $30M carrier drone 🛩️, CR to Dec 11 🏛️

Smack Technologies puts its $61M Series B into a forearm AI display

Smack Technologies raised a $61 million Series B in August for Alpha, a forearm-worn screen that pushes its Omega AI models to operators with poor connectivity. Co-founder and former Marine Raider Andy Markoff wants Alpha to encode commander's intent at the edge, targeting a prototype inside a year and contracts within two. Anduril is chasing the same problem with a helmet display, so wearable military AI has competing form factors before it has a program of record.

Aslan comes out of stealth with $20.8M for national-security AI agents

Aslan emerged from stealth Tuesday with $20.8 million led by Khosla Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital, with 2048 Ventures, BoxGroup, Liquid2 and Alumni Ventures among others participating. Founded in 2025 under CEO Chase Reid, it runs human-supervised AI agents inside criminal forums and Telegram channels, and has worked with the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations. Selling agent harnesses aimed at closed networks tests whether OSINT tooling can be bought as a mission capability, not just another data feed.

Army moves TITAN into production with $192M for Palantir and Anduril

The Army awarded $192 million to move TITAN into production, splitting $127 million to Palantir and $65 million to Anduril for the first eight ground stations. Four advanced and four basic nodes arrive over the next 18 months, following roughly four years of prototyping and Palantir's $178.4 million 2024 prototype award over RTX. TITAN is the clearest case of a software-first vendor carrying a program of record into production, with Anduril, L3Harris and Sierra Nevada underneath it.

Navy opens its carrier drone competition with a $30M unit-cost target

NAVAIR issued a request for information for Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 1, seeking two flying prototypes within three years and first flight within 24 months of award. The aircraft must catapult and trap from Ford- and Nimitz-class carriers and carry four external stores up to 2,500 pounds each, at roughly $30 million a copy. That target doubled from the $15 million the Navy floated in 2024, which is the honest price of making a loyal wingman carrier-suitable.

War Department puts $11.4M into W-band satellite amplifier production

Defense Production Act Title III put $11.4 million into Stellant Systems of Torrance, California for a space amplifier in the 71 to 76 GHz band. The August 27 award covers pilot production and qualification plus manufacturability work on a modernized dual digital electronic power conditioner. Stellant is Arlington Capital's 2021 carve-out of L3Harris's electron devices business and the sole domestic source of space-qualified traveling-wave tubes, which makes one factory a chokepoint.

American Rheinmetall delivers its first XM30 Bradley replacement prototype

American Rheinmetall handed the Army its first Lynx XM30 prototype on Tuesday, with seven more due this year, weeks after General Dynamics delivered its competing Wolf design. Both carry a 50mm XM913 cannon, hybrid-electric drive, a remote turret and two crew plus six dismounts, against roughly 2,500 Bradleys still in service. The vehicles meet at a Fort Irwin rotation next spring, and the Army has signaled it may down-select then or not at all.

Air Force declares the MH-139 Grey Wolf operational for missile-field security

Air Force Global Strike Command said the Boeing MH-139A reached initial operational capability on August 10, replacing Vietnam-era UH-1N Hueys over the ICBM fields. Thirty-eight aircraft are on contract against a planned fleet of 56, down from the 84 envisioned in the 2018 competition, with 21 delivered as of January. Escorting Minuteman III convoys is a mission the Air Force deferred for two decades, and closing it frees attention for Sentinel's real problems.

Elroy Air flies the first remotely piloted sortie under the FAA's eVTOL program

The FAA said Elroy Air's Chaparral flew the first remotely piloted test flight under its eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, from Houma-Terrebonne Airport with the Louisiana transportation department. The demonstrator carries 300 pounds over 300 miles, and the production aircraft Kratos builds in Sacramento targets more than 500 pounds over 450 miles. Elroy took a $46,058,871 Army SBIR Phase III on August 18, so civil airspace access and contested-logistics money are advancing together.

House sends a stopgap through December 11 to the president's desk

The House passed the continuing resolution 370 to 48 on Tuesday, holding the government at fiscal 2026 levels through December 11. A carve-out grants about $2.61 billion across 20 programs for prior-year shipbuilding overruns, including $566.5 million for Columbia and $561.1 million for Virginia. Congress denied obligation authority on five multiyear munitions contracts covering PAC-3, Tomahawk, AMRAAM and two Standard Missile-3 variants, so Monday's interceptor surge waits on appropriations.

Trump nominates acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to the permanent job

The president announced Cao's nomination on Tuesday, four months after the removal of Secretary John Phelan left Cao running the department in an acting capacity. Cao, a 1996 Naval Academy graduate and retired captain who served as an explosive ordnance disposal and diving officer, has been under secretary since October 2025. With Dan Driscoll out at Army, two service secretariats are in play at once, and Cao's shipbuilding focus reads on where Navy money goes.

Pentagon ends the Bahrain ordered departure six months into the Iran war

An August 27 memo from personnel chief Anthony Tata terminates the ordered departure from Bahrain, after the 180-day statutory limit on the March evacuation order expired. Families have until November 30 to shift off safe-haven funding into permanent moves, and returning adult dependents must depart within ten days of the effective date. Roughly 1,300 family members left in March and Fifth Fleet headquarters is still under posture review, a live variable for anyone selling into NAVCENT.

Germany formally accused Russia of supplying equipment and know-how for the attempted drone strike on a Ukrainian An-124 at Leipzig.

General Electric took a $2,874,696,513 sole-source logistics contract for 17 F414 engine components on Navy Super Hornets.

Georgia Tech Research Institute took a $33.4 million OTA as lead weapons integrator for the Army's CAML launcher.

Leonardo DRS won a Space Force prototype OTA for affordable sensors that track fast-moving orbital threats, value undisclosed.

State approved an $800 million sale of Bell 407M and 412EPX helicopters to Iraq, with Bell Textron as prime.

Dataminr's First Alert Advanced goes live across NATO inside Palantir's Maven Smart System next week.