The Defence Blog

Britain is paying Astroscale about $20 million for a spacecraft that will practice getting close to other satellites. The goal is to learn how such maneuvers could threaten UK satellites, and how to defend against them. defence-blog.com/uk-hires-ast...

Reloading missiles at sea is hard because most launchers sit deep inside the ship. BAE Systems has now test-fired a deck-mounted launcher that crews can reload at sea with standard shipboard equipment. defence-blog.com/bae-systems-...

The U.S. Air Force’s first hypersonic missile to enter production will be built in Troy, Alabama. Lockheed Martin just broke ground on an expansion that triples its factory space for the weapon. defence-blog.com/lockheed-bre...

A Russian nuclear submarine fired a Bulava missile from underwater off the country’s Pacific coast. The missile flew across Russia to a test range near the Arctic, and Russia’s Defense Ministry says it hit its target area. defence-blog.com/russia-test-...

Turkey's biggest defense electronics maker now has more than $30 billion in orders waiting to be delivered, a first for the company. It signed $7.5 billion in new work in just three months. defence-blog.com/turkish-defe...

Quantum-Systems’ Reliant long-range drone can stay up for more than 10 hours and take off without a runway. Now the German drone maker has shown it armed with mortar rounds and grenades. defence-blog.com/german-drone...

The U.S. Army is retiring its older AH-64D Apaches, but the AH-64E is staying. Boeing just got nearly $500M more to provide engineering support for the fleet through 2031. defence-blog.com/boeing-gets-...

Canada’s Cyclone helicopters carry a sensor that picks up enemy radar and warns the crew when they’re being tracked. Lockheed is getting $9.8M to fix that system’s software, with work running until 2030. defence-blog.com/canadas-ch-1...

F-35 electronics put out about 30 kW of waste heat, and Block 4 is expected to push that to 47 kW. The jet’s engine was optimized for about 14 kW. The U.S. Navy just gave Lockheed more money to work on the fix. defence-blog.com/u-s-navy-fin...

The U.S. Navy is backing a cheap cruise missile for allied countries to use against ships and land targets. Rocket motor maker X-Bow will build the boosters that launch it. defence-blog.com/x-bow-to-bui...

Ukraine needs Aster 30 missiles to protect its cities, and only Italy and France can supply them. Italy’s next aid package, reportedly including the missiles, is ready, but Rome appears to be holding it until after the U.S. midterms. defence-blog.com/italys-ukrai...

Patriot missiles used by NATO allies will be repaired and recertified in Poland. Lockheed Martin announced the facility today but hasn’t said where it will be or when it opens. defence-blog.com/poland-selec...

The U.S. Army is paying Amazon and World Wide Technology $2.6 million to help build software that can spot and stop cyberattacks on its own, faster than human analysts. defence-blog.com/u-s-army-lau...

Russia is building its own version of Starlink, and two more of its satellites are about to burn up after failing to climb to their working orbit. Most of the other satellites have made it to about 500 km. defence-blog.com/two-russian-...

Kratos is bringing a metal 3D printer that uses eight lasers to build parts up to 1.2 meters tall to its Indiana facility, where it gets hypersonic test vehicles ready for the Pentagon. defence-blog.com/giant-metal-...

A new version of Russia’s Geran-5 cruise missile, often called a jet drone, came down in a field in southern Ukraine’s Odesa region. Nobody knows yet whether it was shot down, jammed, or simply failed. defence-blog.com/upgraded-rus...

KNDS says its Boxer RCT30 can take on drones. Germany and the Netherlands are buying hundreds of them, and the vehicle carries the same unmanned turret and 30 mm gun as the Puma tank-like fighting vehicle. defence-blog.com/knds-pitches...

The same type of drone boat the U.S. used to strike an Iranian naval base in July just trained with British and Australian forces off San Diego, including a resupply run with communications partly cut. defence-blog.com/u-s-uk-and-a...

An Israeli computerized sight built to help soldiers shoot down small drones is now on a Benelli shotgun. defence-blog.com/benelli-shot...

The U.S. military can now buy a drone that fires grenades or shotgun rounds and then flies home to reload. Skyborne’s Cerberus MI just cleared the Pentagon’s security vetting for drones. defence-blog.com/shotgun-arme...

Auterion, best known for strike drone autonomy software, now has its own interceptor. Talon is shoulder-fired, then steered by a second operator. defence-blog.com/german-troop...

Aeon Industrial is standing up the Armory, a 140,000 sq ft site for missile systems, interceptors, high-voltage fuzes and seekers, with initial production targeted in the coming months. Armory-2 is already in development. defence-blog.com/aeon-unveils...

A Finnish startup that makes the electronics inside military drones raised about $2.8 million in five days, before officially launching a single product. Everything is built in Finland with parts from Europe and NATO allies. defence-blog.com/finnish-dron...

Spain now has a tracked armored vehicle that can launch its own drone hunters. At an exercise in Huelva, it fired an interceptor drone that ARMMO says flies faster than 360 km/h (224 mph). defence-blog.com/gdels-and-ar...

NATO commanders just spent 10 days fighting a simulated war with one million soldiers on each side, all run from a command center in Wiesbaden, Germany, with a live map of Europe showing bases and enemy positions. defence-blog.com/nato-simulat...

U.S. Marines flew kamikaze drones with live explosives into targets near Mount Fuji last week. Both test flights hit, and the pilots are junior Marines who had never flown a drone before a three-week course. defence-blog.com/u-s-marine-c...

A U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine is in Western Australia for a month of maintenance, and for the first time Australian civilian workers trained in Hawaii are doing routine work on a Virginia-class boat there. defence-blog.com/u-s-navy-nuc...

U.S. Marine Corps air-defense operators are testing a new dashboard that puts incoming threats and available defenses on one screen. defence-blog.com/u-s-marine-c...

The U.S. Army’s Stryker armored vehicles are due for new power distribution kits, the hardware that routes electricity to radios, sensors and weapons. defence-blog.com/general-dyna...

The U.S. Air Force is buying the hypersonic missile it almost cancelled three years ago. Lockheed Martin got $694 million to build ARRW, a weapon that flies at over five times the speed of sound, but the U.S. Air Force won’t say how many it ordered. defence-blog.com/u-s-air-forc...

The F-16 could soon carry a hypersonic missile. Castelion says the U.S. Air Force research lab has hired it to start fitting its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon, built to fly faster than Mach 5, onto the fighter jet. defence-blog.com/u-s-air-forc...

The Netherlands is buying more armored vehicles, including CV90s for a new infantry battalion and a replacement for a mine-clearing tank that its own defense ministry says breaks down too often to rely on. defence-blog.com/netherlands-...

A French company has built an underwater drone that hunts naval mines, weighs about 29 pounds and can be launched by one person. It says the drone does the job of far bigger models for about a third of the cost. defence-blog.com/french-firm-...

When special forces gear gets hit with chemical or biological agents, it usually has to be thrown away. A new shipping-container-sized system is meant to clean that equipment so it can be used again, and its builder just got another contract. defence-blog.com/blade-wins-d...

Senators are asking the Pentagon to say who commands the National Guard’s new rapid-response units and whether those troops could be used around elections. They want answers by Oct. 28, a week before Election Day. defence-blog.com/senators-see...

The U.S. Air Force has been training at a Florida base with a big six-rotor drone that hunts other drones by firing nets at them, which tangle in the rotors and bring the target down without sending bullets over the base. defence-blog.com/u-s-air-forc...

German defense company Helsing has unveiled an air defense system that uses AI to track and engage hundreds or thousands of drones and missiles at once, plus two new missiles it says will cost far less than today’s interceptors. defence-blog.com/german-firm-...

Britain’s Royal Navy may have just one frigate ready for operations at any given time next year, as two of its last five aging ships are expected to be ruled unseaworthy, leaving the rest to cover Russian submarine patrols. defence-blog.com/royal-navy-f...

Japan just took its new long-range anti-ship missile into the field for its biggest exercise with the United States, practicing how to hit enemy ships using targeting information passed on by U.S. forces. defence-blog.com/japanese-tro...

China’s H-6 bomber has been spotted with a big new jamming pod that looks a lot like the ones carried by its J-16D electronic warfare jet, China’s answer to the U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler. defence-blog.com/chinas-h-6-b...

During a South Korea-U.S. military exercise this summer, a computer simulation of a North Korean attack ended with enemy troops breaking through and reaching the outskirts of Seoul, without any use of nuclear weapons. defence-blog.com/simulated-no...

Japan is reportedly receiving brand-new P-1 sub-hunting planes that can fly but carry no patrol gear, and then stripping them for parts to keep older ones in the air. defence-blog.com/japan-cannib...

South Korea has banned the company that builds its Cheongung air defense missiles from bidding on new government contracts for two years, after prosecutors said its executive bribed a defense procurement official. defence-blog.com/south-korea-...

Small, cheap FPV drones of the kind made famous in Ukraine have destroyed several Chinese-built armored vehicles belonging to Myanmar’s army, according to an analyst who tracks the country’s civil war. defence-blog.com/myanmar-rebe...

China and Pakistan are holding their first joint army training, and Chinese armored vehicles showed up with metal cages on their roofs to stop drone attacks, a fix that spread widely during the war in Ukraine. defence-blog.com/ukraine-war-...

An Asia-Pacific country nobody is naming signed about $200 million in deals with Israel’s Elbit Systems for helicopter targeting cameras, pilot head-up displays and support for combat training gear. defence-blog.com/elbit-wins-2...

A brand-new Russian aerial refueling tanker has shown up in dark gray paint, and part of the marking on its tail looks like the Chinese air force insignia. China was reported last year to be negotiating for 20 of them. defence-blog.com/fresh-il-78-...

Russia’s Lancet kamikaze drone used to be one of its most dangerous weapons. Now a pro-Russian militant says one unit fired about 100 of them in three months and hit just three targets, one of them a roadside shop. defence-blog.com/the-once-fea...

The British military wants to buy American-made Skydio X10D drones, the same small reconnaissance quadcopter the U.S. Army ordered by the thousands this year. defence-blog.com/royal-navy-m...

A 22-year-old U.S. Navy destroyer is heading into a two-year overhaul to become the first warship fitted with Raytheon’s SPY-6(V)4 radar, which can track far more targets than the system it replaces. defence-blog.com/u-s-navy-beg...