The Deep End #86

United Airlines Ventures bets on hypersonic future with Astro Mechanica

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United Airlines Ventures Invests in Aerospace Startup Astro Mechanica

United Airlines Ventures (UAV), the venture capital arm of United Airlines, today announced an investment in aerospace startup Astro Mechanica. Astro Mechanica's adaptive propulsion concept and advanced airframe design has the potential to unlock supersonic aircraft with near-term applications for national defense, orbital launch, and long-range cargo delivery.

Astro Mechanica’s mission is to democratize high-speed flight by making supersonic travel flexible, accessible, and sustainable. To achieve this, Astro Mechanica is integrating its advanced airframe and engine technologies—which include Duality^™, its proprietary dual-use propulsion system—with a new flight operations model to make supersonic transport as efficient and economical as commercial air travel is today. In the near term, the company is developing adaptable, high-speed systems to close aircraft performance gaps for the United States government.

Astro Mechanica

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Tech Terrain

Future Mobility

• Airbus & Shield AI conducted the first flight test of an autonomous H145 helicopter

• Piasecki Aircraft unveiled the KARGO II, a larger VTOL cargo drone variant of KARGO, which it acquired from Kamen last year

Defense Tech

• Red 6 secures U.S. Air Force contract to revolutionize F-16 pilot training with world-first augmented reality training system

• Saronic Technologies won a $392M Navy deal to produce autonomous maritime drones

Space

• Blue Canyon Technologies unveiled its Saturn-400 spacecraft with increased payload capacity

• Space Kinetic raises $12M to build a new paradigm for space superiority and military defense

Advanced Computing

• New AI model advances fusion power research by predicting the success of experiments

• FieldAI raises over $400M to make robot "brains"

Energy

• X-energy won a Pentagon contract to advance its XENITH nuclear microreactor

• Aalo Atomics raises $100M to build a microreactor and data center together

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