The appetite for US defence tech is growing
But burgeoning military-civil fusion creates risks as well as rewards
JOHN THORNHILLAdd to myFT
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John Thornhill YESTERDAY
The symbolism could hardly be starker. Two American astronauts, who flew to the International Space Station in June on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft, may be stuck in space for months because their return vehicle has sprung a leak in its propulsion system. Nasa is now considering whether a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft can pick them up in February.
This unhappy incident highlights the extent to which the innovative, private space company run by the maverick Elon Musk has gained primacy over the problem-plagued, 108-year-old government contractor, in spite of Boeing’s glorious history in the US space programme. It is a lesson unlikely to be lost on the Pentagon as it allocates its $800bn-plus budget in future. Like Nasa, the US Department of Defense relies increasingly on a new generation of Silicon Valley start-ups to sharpen its edge. Traditional defence contractors, including Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, known as the primes, are being disrupted.
This month, one of the highest-profile of those disrupters, Anduril Industries, raised $1.5bn from venture capital investors, valuing the company at $14bn. Anduril will now build out Arsenal-1, a state-of-the-art factory to “hyperscale” the production of thousands of autonomous combat drones as part of the Pentagon’s Replicator programme. This initiative aims to deploy thousands of autonomous systems within 18 to 24 months.
https://www.ft.com/content/9b9e13de-f708-4c68-9a0d-4a4e9243a83e
