Second Bend Labs officially opened its 400,000-acre testing and training facility near Moody Air Force Base in Georgia this week, designed to let defense startups and military operators test drones and counter-drone systems together in realistic combat conditions. The facility sits within Moody's military operations area, enabling low-altitude testing at A-10 Warthog altitudes and includes five miles of riverfront terrain for maritime systems.

The site is a deliberate response to a testing infrastructure gap that the Deputy Defense Secretary, GAO, and Pentagon acquisition officials have all flagged as a barrier to modernization. Unlike military installations, the facility is accessible to civilian companies; unlike private acreage, it supports live military drone operations. The facility quietly hosted Air Force Special Tactics personnel in March and has already accommodated drone startups Red Cat and T3i.

One gap remains: replicating electronic warfare and jamming effects, which require regulatory waivers that the company is actively pursuing with federal officials. The facility is positioning itself as a tech accelerator for the drone era, with some early visitors already expressing interest in co-locating production nearby.

Redwire Corporation has secured more than $20 million in orders from the U.S. Marine Corps for its advanced navigation variant of the Stalker Block 30 uncrewed aircraft system (UAS), procured through the Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) Tailored Logistics Support (TLS) indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. The new systems join nearly 250 Stalker aircraft already fielded by the Marine Corps.

The advanced navigation configuration is purpose-built for degraded and contested electronic warfare (EW) environments, enhancing situational awareness and target tracking for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Redwire specifically cited Ukraine-like EW conditions as the operational benchmark the upgrade addresses.

Each system includes air vehicles, ISR camera payloads, ground control stations in short-, medium-, and long-range variants, and full support kits. The Stalker Block 30 features autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), simultaneous multi-payload support, and power options, including a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) or a rechargeable battery, for extended endurance.

In an April 1 letter to congressional appropriators, all 22 adjutants general commanding states with Air National Guard fighter units signed on to a demand for multiyear procurement of 72 to 100 new fighters annually, calling the Air Force the "oldest, smallest and least ready in its 78-year history." The baseline ask: 48 F-35A Lightning IIs and 24 F-15EX Eagle IIs per year, scaling up to a total of 108 aircraft.

The FY27 budget request totals only 62 fighters, a number that falls short of even the 72-aircraft minimum the Air Force has long identified as necessary to hold the line. The last time the service acquired more than 72 fighters in a single year was 1998. Of the Guard's 24 fighter squadrons, 13 currently have no recapitalization plan aligned with the 2026 National Defense Strategy.

Guard generals emphasized that cascading legacy aircraft to new units "redistributes risk, not capability," and that aging airframes are now being cannibalized for parts to keep others airworthy. Full recapitalization at even 100 aircraft per year, they note, could still take 10 to 15 years given the existing backlog.

At a Pentagon press briefing Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) commander Adm. Brad Cooper discussed the status of the Iran naval blockade, now in its fourth day. At least 13 ships have turned back since enforcement began Monday, with more than 10,000 sailors, Marines, and airmen, and over a dozen ships enforcing the operation.

Simultaneously, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced "Operation Economic Fury," a coordinated sanctions campaign targeting Iran's illicit oil transportation network, including the family of Iranian oil magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned more than two dozen individuals, companies, and vessels connected to the network, while the Pentagon's newly established Economic Defense Unit coordinates military and financial pressure.

Gen. Caine clarified the blockade covers Iran's ports and coastline, not the Strait of Hormuz itself, and declared that the joint force will pursue Iranian-flagged vessels or vessels supplying Iran anywhere in the world, including in the Indo-Pacific under Adm. Sam Paparo's command. Iran still retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack drones despite battlefield attrition, according to Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Lt. Gen. James Adams.

A Reuters investigation reveals that during a global Starlink outage last August, 24 U.S. Navy unmanned surface vessels (USVs) lost connectivity off the California coast for nearly an hour, halting operations. The vessels, intended to bolster options in a conflict with China, were part of a series of Navy drone tests that had already experienced network disruptions linked to Starlink in the months prior.

A Navy safety report from April 2025 bluntly noted that reliance on Starlink "exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load," flagging the network's inability to support simultaneous high-bandwidth control of multiple autonomous systems. SpaceX holds a near-monopoly on low Earth orbit communications for military platforms, with no comparable alternative at an equivalent scale, latency, or cost.

Democratic lawmakers have warned the Pentagon about the systemic risk of overreliance on a single vendor led by a private individual, citing past episodes in which Starlink access was altered without DoD consent in Ukraine and Taiwan. The Anthropic situation offered a parallel case study in vendor concentration risk. Most defense analysts note the benefits of Starlink's ubiquity still outweigh the risks, but the Navy incidents reveal a single point of failure in a program central to autonomous warfare.

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