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🔥 An Axis of Innovation Forms Around Ukraine's Hypersonic Drone Market

Ukraine's battlefield hypersonic drone development draws a global Axis of Innovation to it.

Good Morning. 

This shift towards unmanned and AI-driven systems across various military branches raises ethical questions and highlights the need for balancing technological advancement with human oversight in warfare.

— 🐈‍⬛ Acoustic Kitty

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Image: Destinus

The U.S. Army aims to deploy its first long-range hypersonic weapon battalion by the end of 2024, and the Navy plans to equip Zumwalt class destroyers with their first hypersonic system by 2025.

For the Western world, it is not only governments and militaries that are driving the hypersonic competition, but the private sector is also growing to play an important role in that race.

However, Ukraine's successful interception of a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile in May 2023 suggests that these weapons may not be the decisive game-changers on future battlefields that some had predicted.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY & DIPLOMACY

Counterterrorism

Military & Defense

Cybersecurity

Counterintelligence & Espionage

Transnational Organized Crime

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Image: SpaceX

Elon Musk has intensified SpaceX's efforts to plan a Martian colony, with teams working on dome habitats, spacesuits, and researching human reproduction on Mars.

Musk envisions a self-sustaining city of 1M people on Mars within 20 years, a timeline far more ambitious than NASA's.

The project involves multiple Musk-led companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company, each contributing to the Mars colonization effort.

Despite skepticism about the feasibility and timeline, SpaceX employees are actively working on detailed plans for Martian infrastructure and transportation.

In other news…

A record-breaking heat wave continues to grip much of the U.S., with extreme temperatures spreading from the West to the Southeast, causing public health concerns and economic disruptions.

Researchers using AI have identified a complex "sperm whale phonetic alphabet" in whale vocalizations, revealing sophisticated communication structures similar to human language and potentially offering new insights into whale intelligence and behavior.

Researchers in West Virginia are extracting valuable rare earth elements from abandoned coal mine drainage, potentially solving environmental issues while securing critical materials for clean energy technologies.

Astronomers are proposing a new planetary definition based on mass rather than orbital dynamics, aiming to create a more inclusive classification system that could apply to celestial bodies throughout the universe, though it would still exclude Pluto.

The U.S. Marine Corps has released a new AI strategy outlining 5 key goals to integrate AI across its operations, from enhancing decision-making and scaling deployment to improving talent management and fostering collaboration with partners.

DEALS & FUNDING

Image: Helsing

This round is the second-largest ever in defense tech, after Anduril's $1.5B Series E in 2022.

The German-based company plans to expand its presence in Baltic nations bordering Russia, starting with a new entity in Estonia and a €70M investment in Baltic defense projects over three years.

Helsing develops AI software to enhance defense systems, improve weapons capabilities, and aid battlefield decision-making, amid increased Western investment in defense technology in response to perceived threats from Russia and China.

In other news…

RTX’s Raytheon has been awarded a $1.2B contract to provide additional Patriot air and missile defense systems to Germany.

The U.S. announced a new $225M military aid package for Ukraine, including a Patriot missile battery and other air defense systems

Northrop Grumman has become the first U.S. company to sign an agreement to manufacture weapons inside Ukraine, aiming to bolster the country's defense industry as allied nations' weapons stocks are depleted.

Exein, a Rome-based IoT cybersecurity startup, raised €15M in a Series B round to expand its device security solutions that protect industrial equipment like robotic arms from potentially dangerous hacks.

Formlabs, an MIT spinout that is lowering the barrier of entry for SLA printing, has acquired Micronics, a two-person startup developing accessible SLS 3D printing technology.

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