One of the largest private defense tech companies in America is building something new: a long range stealth drone.
What’s happening:
- American defense tech company General Atomics has been awarded a new $99.3M USD contract from the United States Air Force Research Laboratory to develop a new stealth drone known as the GHOST drone
Why it matters:
- The GHOST drone is aiming to provide the United States Air Force with a new type of unmanned aircraft that is capable of conducting surveillance, gathering intelligence and performing strike missions while being highly difficult to detect or intercept
Going deeper:
- The GHOST drone is being purpose built to perform extremely long missions that require continuous flight for multiple days in a row and will be designed on a modular platform that allows for interchangeable components to quickly be able to be adapted to different types of combat operations
- The United States has been aggressively ramping up their bet on drone hardware and technology lately, which has largely been fuelled by United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publishing a new memo focused on replacing manned helicopters and armoured vehicles with drones as well as increasing their purchases of counter drone systems
The intrigue:
- The United States Air Force has been cutting a flurry of new deals focused on next generation technologies for combat recently, including a multi million contract boost to C3 AI (NYSE: AI) as well as providing a $5.48M USD grant to Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) to accelerate the development of quantum chips
