Europe’s best-funded rocket startup just raised €270M, and now Isar Aerospace has to actually reach orbit
Europe’s best-funded rocket startup just raised €270M, and now Isar Aerospace has to actually reach orbit

Europe has the ambition to reach space on its own. What it lacks is rockets that work. Isar Aerospace has just raised €270mn to fix the first problem, and in less than a week it gets another chance to fix the second. The Munich startup, one of Europe’s…

A former NASA chief is taking Quantum Space public at $1.2bn to build spacecraft for the next space race
A former NASA chief is taking Quantum Space public at $1.2bn to build spacecraft for the next space race

The last time Jim Bridenstine shaped America’s space ambitions, he ran NASA. Now he is betting he can build the hardware for the next phase of the space race, and he wants public investors to fund it. Quantum Space, the Maryland startup Bridenstine now…

The US wants NATO allies to spend their new defence budgets ripping out Huawei
The US wants NATO allies to spend their new defence budgets ripping out Huawei

The US has found a new use for Europe’s swelling defence budgets: tearing out Huawei. Whether its allies are listening is another matter. The State Department’s China coordinator, Joshua Young, told officials in Brussels last month that NATO members sh…

Trump signs memo putting ‘most advanced AI’ into military hands and banning vendors from pulling the plug
Trump signs memo putting ‘most advanced AI’ into military hands and banning vendors from pulling the plug

President Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum on Friday ordering the US military and intelligence agencies to accelerate their adoption of cutting-edge AI. The directive, NSPM-11, establishes a framework for “rapid onboarding of th…

Applied Aerospace & Defense raises $650M in an IPO the market wanted ten times over
Applied Aerospace & Defense raises $650M in an IPO the market wanted ten times over

The appetite was the story. Applied Aerospace & Defense priced its initial public offering on Tuesday at $20 a share, raising $650M, and by the time the book closed the deal was said to be about ten times oversubscribed. A company that makes fusela…

Taiwan shows off robot patrol dogs that could guard its South China Sea islands
Taiwan shows off robot patrol dogs that could guard its South China Sea islands

A military research institute demonstrated three versions of a four-legged robot, one of them armed, for possible duty on remote outposts the coast guard struggles to staff. Taiwan’s main weapons-development institute put three robot dogs through their…

Mach Industries quadruples to $1.8bn as the Pentagon’s drone-dominance push lifts every defence-tech valuation
Mach Industries quadruples to $1.8bn as the Pentagon’s drone-dominance push lifts every defence-tech valuation

The Huntington Beach defence-tech startup, run by a 22-year-old MIT dropout, has raised a $300M Series C at a $1.8bn valuation, nearly 4x its mark from June 2025. Mach Industries, the three-year-old defence-tech startup run by 22-year-old founder and c…

AI eclipsed nuclear weapons as the dominant threat at Asia’s premier defense summit
AI eclipsed nuclear weapons as the dominant threat at Asia’s premier defense summit

The dangers of artificial intelligence eclipsed nuclear weapons as the central concern at a strategic stability panel during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, with senior military officials warning that AI-driven systems are collapsing the time ava…

A startup with Eric Trump as adviser is testing humanoid robots in Ukraine. It wants them on US front lines within 18 months.
A startup with Eric Trump as adviser is testing humanoid robots in Ukraine. It wants them on US front lines within 18 months.

Foundation Future Industries, a San Francisco startup founded in 2024, sent two of its Phantom MK-1 humanoid robots to Ukraine earlier this year. The company described it as the first known deployment of humanoid robots in a combat theatre. The tests, …

SpaceX just won a second Golden Dome contract. This one is $4.16 billion.
SpaceX just won a second Golden Dome contract. This one is $4.16 billion.

The US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $4.16 billion contract on Friday to build satellites that track foreign aircraft and missiles. The programme is called Space-Based Advanced Moving Target Indicator, or SB-AMTI. It is part of the Trump administration’…