Defense firms flex new weapons and contracts at Paris Air Show

The early days of this year's Paris Air Show brimmed with news, from aircraft purchases to factory floor expansions to missile unveilings.

Why it matters: The show is among the world's most prestigious. It's where buyers and sellers go to cut deals — and it's where militaries go to flex hardware.

Here are the latest headlines:

• Anduril Industries and Rheinmetall revealed a new partnership through which European variants of the Barracuda missile and Fury robo-wingman will be produced. Solid rocket motors are also on the table.
• Boeing officials said the company can "absolutely" handle the U.S. Air Force's F-47 and the U.S. Navy's to-be-awarded F/A-XX at the same time, should it win the latter contract.
• Honeywell and Near Earth Autonomy revealed they completed the first autonomous test flight of a Leonardo AW139 helicopter. It happened in May in Phoenix.
• General Atomics unveiled Pele, a semiautonomous 9-foot launched effect optimized for use aboard the company's MQ-9B SkyGuardian. Pele can fly for seven hours and has a 500-nautical-mile range.
• Portal Space Systems announced it will open a 50,000-square-foot spacecraft manufacturing facility in Bothell, Washington. It will be just 3 miles from the company's existing design-and-testing hub.
• Portugal agreed to buy a sixth KC-390 Millennium aircraft from Embraer. Lisbon previously said it would buy five. It can be used for cargo transport, evacuation and refueling missions.
• MBDA rolled out what it's calling "one-way effector" — a relatively cheap drone meant to drain enemy air defenses and coffers. The company said the weapon combines expertise in cruise missiles and remote-controlled munitions.
• Pratt & Whitney, a part of RTX, will supply TJ150 engines for the Small Cruise Missile, also known as Black Arrow. The arrangement kicked off in April and will run through the first quarter of fiscal 2026.

• Ursa Major secured a nearly $33 million contract to develop and deliver to Stratolaunch 16 upgraded Hadley H13 engines. Hadleys have powered multiple Talon-A missions at speeds greater than Mach 5.
• Kratos said it will open a facility in Bristow, Oklahoma, to produce its GEK (GE Aerospace-Kratos) line of turbojet engines. The plant will include three small-engine test cells; they are expected to be operational in 2027.
• Helsing and Saab completed three Gripen E flights with artificial intelligence, dubbed Centaur, at the controls. Flights happened in May and June.
• Archer, an air-taxi maker, raised $850 million, its largest round to date.

Go deeper: As Europe sweats Trump, U.S. lawmakers seek trade show diplomacy in Paris