Reed Knocks Budget. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, criticized the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion defense spending request for fiscal year 2027, specifically pushing back on the planned use of $350 billion in reconciliation funds. Reed said the large amount of mandatory spending built into the budget via reconciliation would be approved “on a party-line vote outside the annual defense authorization and appropriation process, which means less oversight and fewer strings attached.” “This is not a serious budget. From what little information we have, this flawed, irresponsible proposal is unjustified and fails to acknowledge the negative impacts of Trump’s Iran war and faltering economy. This proposed spending spree doesn’t take into account the fact that this administration is also likely to request a major emergency war supplemental,” Reed said, referencing the Pentagon’s discussions around a potential $200 billion supplemental. “I will not rubber-stamp a bloated, undisciplined budget. I will work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to carefully scrutinize every penny.”
Golden Anduril. Anduril on March 30 announced it is supporting the Defense Department’s Golden Dome for America by creating a network to help connect sensors and shooters. Gen. Michael Guetlein, Golden Dome for America Direct Reporting Program Manager, has repeatedly said his focus in FY 2026 is creating a network to connect the various sensors and shooters together and he sees that the cultural and bureaucracy challenges to do that are the biggest challenges to the program, beyond technical issues. In a post on the social media platform X, Anduril boasted it was supporting Golden Dome for America by establishing a missile defense shield, which it described as “a network that connects and fuses data from the entire spectrum of available sensors, effectors, and other assets spread across domains, enabling real-time decision making while eliminating single points of failure.” Earlier in March, Reuters reported Anduril and Palantir Technologies are working together to develop Golden Dome software. Anduril was one of several likely winners of a November 2025 Space Force contract to build prototypes for Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors.
Hypersonic Test Launch. The Army on March 26, in partnership with the Navy, conducted a successful hypersonic missile test launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the Pentagon announced on April 2. “The Army and Navy partnership to field a common hypersonic missile across land- and sea-based platforms supports the National Defense Strategy by accelerating timelines, reducing costs, and delivering a highly survivable capability to defeat time-sensitive, heavily defended, and high-value targets at speeds exceeding Mach 5.” The Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) has been in development for about six years and will share the same all-up missile round and canister, and Common Hypersonic Glide Body with the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program. In Mid-March, an Army official said the service expected to complete fielding of its first operational LRHW battery “within a few weeks.”
Hegseth Ousts Hodne. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purge of senior Army officials also includes Gen. David Hodne, who led the Army’s new Transformation and Training Command (T2COM), and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the service’s chief of chaplains, a U.S. official confirmed to Defense Daily. The update on Hodne and Green’s firing followed Hegseth’s decision to oust Army Chief Gen. Randy George. It is not immediately clear the reasoning behind the three Army senior leader’s removal. Hodne’s removal is a major shakeup, with the Army having only activated T2COM in October after merging Army Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command.
Marines Drone Strike. Last month, Marines assigned to the III Expeditionary Operations Training Group at Okinawa, Japan, and operators from U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command performed the Marine Corps’ first live-fire drone strike against a maritime surface vessel launched from a naval surface craft, the Navy announced on April 1. The warfighters targeted an unmanned surface vessel the training group designed and built itself. The Navy said this was a landmark in integration of special operations and conventional forces, where drones and their targets can both be built by Marines. The test event demonstrated the Marines’ ability to also launch attack drones from their self-built unmanned surface vessels. The Navy said the III Marine Expeditionary Force’s (MEF) Expeditionary Operations Training Group’s (EOTG) Unmanned Systems Branch focuses on perfecting a lethal payload delivery and developing robust counter-UAS systems. The Marines are also being trained to be operators, engineers, built their own unmanned systems from local economies in conflict and design and build their own payloads.
Counter Drone Exercise. The U.S. Air Force and Army used a Boeing AN/TWQ-1 Avenger armed with Stinger missiles by RTX’s Raytheon in a counter drone exercise at Osan Air Base, South Korea, last month, the Air Force said. “The training additionally emphasized the use of man-portable air defense teams, or MANPADs,” according to the Air Force. “If the Avenger platform becomes inoperable, the crews can remove the Stinger missile pods and deploy them as mobile teams capable of moving across the installation with security forces patrols.”
Airbus Interceptor Drone. Airbus last week said its jet-powered ‘Bird of Prey’ interceptor drone successfully completed its first demonstration flight, autonomously searching, detecting and classifying a “medium-sized one-way attack drone” before engaging it with a Mark I air-to-air missile developed by startup Frankenburg Technologies. The test in Northern Germany occurred nine-months after the start of the project. “Together with Airbus, it marks the first integration of a new class of low-cost, mass manufacturable interceptors missiles onto a drone, creating a new cost curve for air defence and enabling defence against mass aerial threats at a fundamentally different scale,” Kusti Salm, Frankenburg’s CEO, said in a statement.
Launch Infrastructure. Space investments that the White House said on Friday are priorities in the fiscal 2027 budget include “Golden Dome, America’s launch infrastructure, and classified programs.” One of the sites under consideration for launch build-up is Wallops Island, Va. “As the United States military, at our ranges in Cape Canaveral and at Vandenberg has upped the launch tempo with the commercial industry, I think as that continues to go up, I think we’re gonna have to look at other launch locations to help absorb some of that capacity, and I think Wallops, having matured the way it has, could be a potential to do that,” U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of U.S. Space Command, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
DDG-131. HII launched the future USS George M. Neal (DDG-131) on April 1, the fourth Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to be built at its Ingalls Shipbuilding shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. Launch followed shipbuilders finishing the most key construction work, securing major components and performing inspections to make sure it was ready to enter the water, whereupon it was moved to a dry dock and floated. As a Flight III ship it features modifications to field the AN/SPY-6(V)1 air and missile defense radar and Aegis Baseline 10 combat system. Next steps for ship construction include outfitting systems activation and testing before sea trials.
LCS-14. The Navy on April 2 announced the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center (SWRMC) completed the months-long Select Restricted Availability (SRA) maintenance period one day early on the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship USS Manchester (LCS 14). The Navy said this supports the Chief of Naval Operation’s priority to meet or exceed maintenance timelines for completion. The Navy said SWRMC, contractor’s and the ship’s forces applied lessons learned from previous availabilities during initial planning and while executing repairs.
OIB Award. Global Military Products said on April 1 it has been awarded a four-year contract to manage the Army’s Quad Cities Cartridge Case Facility (QCCCF) at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and to work on new product development. “Under this agreement, we will leverage the facility’s capacity and employees’ capabilities to better serve the U.S. and its allies by expanding current cartridge case production and establishing a Mortar Barrel Production Center of Excellence,” Jeff Brunozzi, president of Global Ordnance Holdings, said in a statement. The QCCCF facility produces brass and steel cartridge cases and GMP said it will “look to add production of additional cartridge cases in support of its contracts for both U.S. and non-NATO cartridge cases.” GMP said the value of the new contract is not being disclosed.
Teledyne Space. With an eye to the growing space market, Teledyne Technologies last week created a new business area that integrates the company’s space-focused technologies and businesses. “The creation of Teledyne Space reflects Teledyne’s strong commitment to the global space sector,” Megan Tremer, president of Teledyne Space Imaging and MEMS, said in a statement. “By bringing together expertise across multiple Teledyne businesses, this new collective aligns our capabilities in sensing, electronics, components and mission-critical operations to support the growing demand for advanced space technologies and deliver a more seamless experience for our customers.”
GMLRS FMS. The State Department last week okayed a potential $83.1 million Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Singapore for the purchase of 45 Lockheed Martin-built M30A2 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS)-Alternative Warhead pods and related equipment. The GMLRS-Alternative Warhead can be fired from the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, has a range exceeding 70 kilometers and carries a 200-pound class fragmenting warhead.
Colorado Innovation Hub. Step One 2 Launch (SO2L), an innovation hub near Denver, on Thursday will cut the ribbon on a 22,000 square-foot facility offering private offices, engineering suites, hot desks, shared assembly areas and conference rooms geared for Colorado’s growing technology sector. SO2L last week said the new Class A flex zone hub will allow startups and growing companies to design, prototype and scale products in one place with “a level of infrastructure that has historically been out of reach for companies building complex technologies in industries such as defense, aerospace and advanced manufacturing.”
Ursa Major Adds Capacity. Rocket motor and engine startup Ursa Major last week said it has completed a key phase in its plans to add scale and boost manufacturing with more machining and 3D printing capacity on line, a new solid rocket motor test site, and investments in vehicle integration and assembly. The expansion is a key part of the company’s evolution to a defense prime contractor, it said. “With this phase complete, we’re producing the propulsion, the vehicle systems and the infrastructure needed to deliver real capability on timelines that matter,” CEO Chris Spagnoletti, said in a statement.
Palladyne to Northern Strike. Palladyne AI last week said its swarm autonomy platform will be used this August in the Defense Department’s Northern Strike 26-2 joint exercise at the National All-Domain Warfighting Center in Michigan. The exercise will include the Utah-based company’s Gremlin-X reusable, autonomous unmanned aircraft system that can launch munitions, operating with drones from other suppliers using Palladyne’s SwarmOS within a unified Decentralized Embodied Collaborative Autonomy framework for autonomous collaboration. Palladyne said it will manage four UAS from a single Android Team Awareness Kit, adding that the operation will not rely on centralized command and control.
Quantum-Photonic Navigation. ANELLO Photonics and Q-CTRL last month announced a partnership that integrates ANELLO’s SiPhOG solid-state inertial navigation systems with Q-CTRL’s Ironstone Opal quantum magnetic navigation capabilities to create a multi-layered Quantum Navigation Solution to enable unmanned aircraft systems to operate in GPS-denied and contested environments. “By combining ANELLO’s proven SiPhOG-based inertial sensing with Q-CTRL’s groundbreaking Ironstone Opal quantum navigation technologies, we are exploring a powerful new architecture designed to deliver resilient positioning even when GPS is unavailable or compromised,” Mario Paniccia, co-founder and CEO of ANELLO, said in a statement.
