🚀 Anduril unveils Steelfin at a third of PAC-3 cost

With its minesweepers retired, the US Navy is shifting mine hunting to remote and robotic systems that find and neutralize mines while keeping sailors out of the minefield.

Remote mine-hunting systems were already used to verify a channel along the Omani coast was clear, Hudson Institute analyst Bryan Clark told Breaking Defense.

Robots can be bought in bulk, stored, and surged when needed, and onboard processing would let underwater vehicles report results immediately instead of after recovery.

Powerus unveiled Guardian 3 at AUSA (Association of the US Army), a fully autonomous interceptor that launches on a radar cue and uses AI to find and strike drones.

It succeeds the manual Guardian 1 and semi-autonomous Guardian 2, built after early Iran-war deployments of Ukrainian-style interceptors demanded pilot skill few militaries have.

Now Nasdaq-listed at nearly $390M, Powerus will also serve as the US sales channel for Destinus as the Pentagon hunts cheaper missile interceptors.

Forterra debuted OASIS-OneLink, a single interface that lets operators monitor and command multiple autonomous systems, potentially from different vendors, without learning new controls for each.

The Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center is already using it to pilot unmanned systems, layered on Forterra’s OASIS-Fabric mesh for communications-degraded environments.

A common control layer could shorten test and evaluation, letting DoD judge new robots on performance rather than operator training time.

Heaviside Industries unveiled Tyr at AUSA, a roughly five-pound man-packable loitering munition with four Nammo warheads, including anti-tank shaped charge and explosively formed penetrator.

Tyr flies over 60 minutes, reaches beyond 40km at more than 150 mph, operates in GPS-denied conditions, and has completed live-fire testing.

Already under contract with US defense customers, the LA and Oslo-based startup is pitching Tyr as long-range strike for lower echelons, fielded in large numbers.

Anduril unveiled Steelfin, a two-stage modular interceptor family it aims to price at about a third of the Patriot PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement).

Variants share one terminal interceptor and use 10-, 18-, or 21-inch boosters, with Steelfin competing in the Army’s low-cost interceptor program and possibly Future Interceptor.

Ballistic testing is complete, flight tests begin next year, and most subassemblies will be built at Anduril’s Arsenal-1 plant in Ohio.

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