Aerotime reports, “EVIO, a little-known hybrid-electric aircraft developer backed by Boeing, stepped into the spotlight on December 11, 2025, with the public launch of its EVIO 810 regional airliner and a claim of 450 conditional purchase agreements. The clean-sheet aircraft, a 76-seat hybrid-electric design, is aimed at the 50- to 100-seat market and is planned to enter service in the early 2030s.”
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EVIO’s Hybrid-Electric Regional Jet
EVIO Aircraft; YouTube
Aviation Week reports, “Avio says it plans to build an 860,000-ft. solid rocket motor production facility in Virginia to meet strong demand in the U.S. The Italian rocket company, on Dec. 11, said it expects to spend around $500 million on the site.”
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Unmanned Systems Technology reports, “Meteomatics, a weather intelligence company has collaborated with the U.S. Navy to trial automated weather drones, known as Meteodrones, for collecting atmospheric data vital in maritime operations. The trial, conducted as part of the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) near Gulfport in the Mississippi Sound, marks a significant step toward enhancing operational readiness and safety for naval missions.”
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Meteodrones
Meteomatics; YouTube
SPACE reports, “Rocket Lab is getting ready to take a bigger bite out of the space launch market. The company recently completed final qualification tests on the fairing that will crown its newest launch vehicle, the partially reusable Neutron, which is expected to fly for the first time early next year.”
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FROM THE INSTITUTE
The FY26 NDAA, together with the Pentagon’s transition to a Warfighting Acquisition System, marks the most consequential structural realignment of U.S. defense procurement and sustainment policy in a generation. For the first time, Congress has moved beyond oversight and pilot programs to directly engineer how acquisition speed, industrial capacity, sustainment readiness, and portfolio-level risk are governed in statute. These reforms codify commercial-first procurement, establish Portfolio Acquisition Executives with broad termination authority, impose production and depot modernization mandates, and tie operational readiness to measurable sustainment and stockpile requirements.
Aerotime reports, “Electric vehicle takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer Vertical Aerospace has unveiled Valo, the latest evolution of its urban air mobility aircraft following the VX4 prototype. On December 12, 2025, the first photos of Valo were released showing a much sleeker and sharper unit from the VX4, Vertical’s workhorse eVTOL prototype.”
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SPACE reports, “A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. It was “a new record for a “flight-proven” booster, landing for the 32nd time after helping loft Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.”
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SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center on Dec. 8 at 5:26 p.m. EST. (Launch occurs at the 57:23 mark)