Aerospace

America’s Reaper successor is being designed around affordable operational mass. The Air Force and DIU are refining requirements for a modular, long-range aircraft capable of persistent surveillance and strike.

Kratos has opened new hypersonic payload capacity beside Crane’s laboratories. The $50 million Indiana facility can prepare, integrate, manufacture, and test as many as six experimental payloads simultaneously.

Wildfires around Bordeaux expose France’s concentrated defence-production geography to risk. Precautionary action has affected facilities connected with Rafale manufacture, strategic propulsion, missile motors, pyrotechnics, and military testing across Gironde.

MGI’s Vortex enters Britain’s autonomous combat-air contest at ambitious scale. The proposed aircraft combines fighter-like performance, a 1,000kg payload, and a target price intended to support production in operationally useful numbers.

Singapore’s GCAP discussions test how far the partnership can expand. Exploratory talks could open routes into combat-air engineering, regional support, and future orders, although funding, technology access, and industrial workshare remain undecided.

Orqa plans to expand annual output to half-a-million manufactured products. The Osijek investment will test whether European drone manufacturing can combine vertical integration, electronic-component supply, quality control, software configuration, and sustained export demand.