Exclusive: Mach Industries and Heven Drones partner on defense production

• Pentagon officials used similar language to describe Replicator 1.0, launched in 2023 to amass thousands of unmanned battlefield assets.

Zoom in: Heven's H100, H2D55 and Raider drones will be pumped out at the 115,000-square-foot plant, down the road from other defense-tech players like Anduril Industries.

• There are commitments to co-develop components, including avionics, radios and propulsion systems.
• Heven specializes in hydrogen-powered aircraft. It unveiled Raider in February at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference in Abu Dhabi.

What they're saying: "Our customers urgently need thousands, and eventually tens of thousands, of drones to be deployed in-theater," Heven Drones CEO Bentzion Levinson said.

• The goal here, he added, is "quick-turn, full-scale American manufacturing."

Flashback: Mach weeks ago said it was selected by the U.S. Army Applications Laboratory to work on a vertical-takeoff cruise missile dubbed Strategic Strike.

• The company said the weapon is meant to hit targets up to 180 miles away with a roughly 22-pound warhead. It pitched it as having "HIMARS range, cruise missile speed and Hellfire effects."

Go deeper: Where America's fragile defense production and futuristic megafactories meet