On Sept. 2, Palmer Luckey tweeted: “Bravo six, going Founder Mode.”
In subsequent days, the young co-founder of Anduril Industries revealed what he meant by the lingo used in gaming and Silicon Valley circles.
The nation’s hottest defense tech startup unveiled several new products, including a fleet of Barracuda-M Cruise missiles and a way to use its military surveillance systems in space, “the final frontier.” Luckey also revealed his “top priority” is goggles for front-line soldiers.
Fast-growing Anduril has moved well beyond its earlier focus on protecting borders to becoming a full-fledged defense supplier including a variety of airborne and underwater drones, autonomous fighter jets and rocket motors.
“I don’t think the United States needs to be the world police – it needs to be the world’s gun store,” Luckey posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sept. 13.
The Costa Mesa-based company is positioning itself to take on major defense contractors such as RTX (NYSE: RTX; formerly called Raytheon Technologies) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT). In August, Anduril raised $1.5 billion and was valued at $14 billion.
Last week, Luckey openly mocked General Atomics, which claimed it “is ready to rewrite” the rules of airpower again in a paid article on Breaking Defense website on Sept. 16.
“The sponsored article written by General Atomics PR people doth protest too much, methinks,” Luckey quipped on the X platform.
Command Systems in Space
As the militarization of space appears inevitable, Anduril has developed systems that will potentially supply the U.S. Space Force and other branches of the military while emphasizing it is “dedicated to fostering partnerships across the space industry.”
Privately held Anduril said Sept. 13 that it will “design, build and launch our own fully integrated systems by the end of 2025” for the U.S. military and its allies.
The system, incorporating both software and hardware, will use an extended version of Anduril’s signature software product, Lattice. Lattice is equipped with artificial intelligence and machine learning to process data from an array of sensors, feeds and systems.
The software will autonomously monitor and manage space-based assets, improve situational awareness and reduce operator workload, the company said.
To augment the flurry of announcements, the company on Sept. 10 also announced a partnership with Oracle Corp. to bring the Lattice platform to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and OCI Roving Edge Infrastructure globally. Anduril will also pair its Menace hardware systems with OCI to improve operations in connected and disconnected mobile command and control environments (NYSE: ORCL).
“Together, Oracle and Anduril will provide secure mission capabilities across the globe from the datacenter to the tactical edge, and at all classification levels,” Anduril said in a Sept. 10 statement.
Barracuda-M Cruise Missiles
On Sept. 12, just one day before announcing the push into space, Anduril introduced its line of Barracuda-M cruise missiles. They will be configured in three different sizes for the American military and the country’s allies.
“This isn’t just one product, it is a whole family of products that solve some of the biggest problems faced by our military,” Palmer wrote on X. “It is also one of the five weapons systems we specifically pitched to investors in the first Anduril pitch deck. Three down, two to go…”
The Barracuda family of cruise missiles consists of Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250 and Barracuda-500.
Each increment offers increasing size, range and payload capacity. All Barracudas are compatible with a host of payloads and employment mechanisms, support a variety of different missions and provide warfighters with an adaptable and upgradeable capability to counter evolving threats.
While Anduril referred to the weapons as cruise missiles, the official designation is Autonomous Air Vehicles. A cruise missile is a low-flying missile guided to its target by an on-board computer.
Anduril says it’s using modern technology like AI to build weapons at cheaper costs than the large defense contractors. Its gross margins of 40% to 50% are far higher than the industry norms around 10% to 15%, according to the private investor website Sacra.
It also has flipped the traditional business model of defense contracting by not waiting for Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from governmental agencies and instead pursuing a strategy where it takes on the R&D burden upfront, allowing them to offer pre-developed, cutting-edge solutions to the Department of Defense, Sacra said earlier this year.
Anduril told the Business Journal on Sept. 12 that the Barracuda-M models are “30% cheaper on average than competing solutions. Exact costs for each system vary depending on the specific configuration required by the customer.”
By contrast, the RTX’s Tomahawk missile, often fired from submarines and surface ships, costs about $2.4 million each per missile in fiscal 2022 dollars, according to the U.S. Navy.
Luckey said the company’s been testing the missiles for years.
“Half the parts, half the cost and 95% less production tools mean America can mass-produce whole batteries of Barracudas at a scale that can beat China,” Luckey said.
Speed, Maneuverability, Range
“The vehicle’s fast speeds, high maneuverability and extended ranges are made possible by Barracuda’s turbojets, air-breathing engines that take in air to combust their fuel,” the company said.
They are designed for “hyper-scale manufacturing” as Anduril rushes to fill what it sees as a dangerous lack of weapons in the U.S. military. Anduril says it already has customers for the Barracuda.
An Anduril video on its website shows artists’ renderings of the missiles being assembled by robots and then flowing off an assembly line, in a glimpse of things to come in the future.
The Barracuda-250 could be launched from the internal weapons bay of F-35 fighters or bombers, and externally from F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-18E/F Super Hornets, industry news website Defense News said.
The Barracuda-500 could carry a payload of more than 100 pounds and “loiter” in the air for more than two hours before hitting its target, Defense News said. In addition to launches from sleek fighter jets, it could also be launched from C-17 military cargo plane and C-130 transport aircraft, according to Defense News.
Anduril said: “Designed from the ground-up for hyper-scale manufacturing, Barracuda production rates are designed to keep pace with the threat and can be doubled on-call to meet short-term surges in demand.”
The company said it is already carrying out “law-rate” production of the Barracuda while the company is taking steps to increase production. It will be turned out in huge quantities from the more than 5 million-square-foot factory that was announced in August; where the factory will be built hasn’t yet been disclosed.
Palmer’s Top Priority: Army Goggles
Palmer Luckey, who rose to fame with his Oculus VR headsets more than a decade ago, is now working on battlefield vision headsets for the U.S. Army in collaboration with Microsoft Corp.
Luckey’s Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa last week announced an alliance with Microsoft to improve the performance of the U.S. Army’s augmented vision headsets that are linked to sensors in drones, ground vehicles and overhead aircraft.
Luckey, who founded Anduril in 2017, called the Army’s goggle project his “top priority.” Bloomberg News said the Pentagon may spend $21.9 billion on such goggles over a decade.
The latest project involves the Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System program which is “designed to ingest data from a host of sensors, including those integrated on the headset, attached to weapon systems and via third party devices and software, giving soldiers unprecedented visibility on the battlefield,” Anduril said in Sept. 19 statement.
Luckey sold Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014 for $2.3 billion, establishing his reputation as a virtual reality tech guru.
“This project is my top priority at Anduril, and it has been for some time now,” Luckey said in a statement announcing the new collaboration.
“It’s one of the Army’s most critical programs being fielded in the near future, with the goal of getting the right data to the right people at the right time.”
Praise for Tariffs
Palmer Luckey, the founder of defense company Anduril Industries, says “tariffs are great” as a way protect American manufacturing.
While Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for tariffs on a wide variety of imported products, Luckey proposed that tariffs be focused on “things that are directly downstream of strategically important assets.”
“For example, I’m a fan of steel tariffs to the extent that they allow us to maintain some steel industry, and aluminum tariffs that allow us some aluminum industry,” he told the Pirate Wires podcast dated Sept. 12.
“It’s not just the U.S. that’s been hollowed out by China. It’s everybody. It’s the entire West.’’
He favors tariffs because they “ensure there is a market for manufacturing” that takes place under U.S. laws regulating human rights laws and energy.
Trump, when he was president in 2018, imposed tariffs on some imported steel and aluminum. Critics have said that Trump’s insistence on widespread tariffs would ultimately raise prices for U.S. consumers. Luckey has hosted fundraisers for Trump in Newport Harbor.
