Ondas Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Stemme GmbH, the German manufacturer of the airframe used in its ULTRA long-endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, in an all-cash deal. Ondas announced the agreement on November 5, 2026, together with a plan to expand ULTRA production, including in the United States, to 10 aircraft per month by 2028.

The deal covers the airframe of a programme Ondas acquired in July 2026 with DZYNE Technologies. According to the press release, Stemme currently runs at approximately 25% of production capacity across its facilities in Strausberg and Pasewalk, Germany, and Ondas plans to raise that utilization while adding 345,000 square feet of planned airframe production space in the United States. The purchase price was not disclosed, and the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.

What Ondas is buying

Stemme is a German original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of motor gliders, special-mission platforms and uncrewed aerial vehicle aerostructures. ULTRA is built on Stemme’s type-certified S12 composite airframe. Stemme holds airworthiness approvals from EASA, Germany’s Federal Aviation Office (LBA) and the FAA, and operates an FAA Part 145 repair station, according to Ondas.

Its two German sites span approximately 135,571 square feet of design, production and maintenance space. Ondas said bringing Stemme in-house would strengthen manufacturing capacity and the supply chain for U.S. and allied demand, and reduce reliance on an external supplier.

“Acquiring Stemme would give us greater control over airframe capacity, cost and schedule,” said Eric Brock, Chairman and CEO of Ondas, adding that this supports the target of 10 ULTRA aircraft per month by 2028 and brings significant production capacity to the United States. “Our objective is to align aircraft production with the scale of customer requirements,” Brock said.

Koenraad Geurts and Benjamin de Broqueville, Co-CEOs of Stemme, said: “We are incredibly excited about our future with Ondas.”

The ULTRA aircraft

Ondas says ULTRA is operationally deployed by the U.S. Air Force and “is capable of more than 70 hours of flight time with over 400 pounds of payload capacity.” Its payload architecture supports electro-optical and infrared sensing, radio-frequency collection and communications relay. Ondas lists dual-use applications including border and maritime surveillance, disaster response, environmental monitoring and commercial infrastructure inspection.

The release argues that demand for persistent ISR exceeds available capacity, citing the U.S. Department of War’s mixed-fleet approach, which includes lower-cost, attritable aircraft that can be fielded at scale.

“Our focus now is building more aircraft, faster,” said Ryan Hartman, President and CEO of Ondas Sentinel. “Bringing Stemme into Ondas Sentinel would put the airframe, the engineering and the production line under one roof,” he said, so the company can respond faster to customer requirements and iterate the ULTRA design for future U.S. Air Force requirements.

How ULTRA came to Ondas

ULTRA joined the Ondas portfolio through the DZYNE acquisition, which Ondas announced on July 6, 2026. That deal was valued at $875.8 million, made up of $200 million in cash and about 85 million Ondas shares valued at about $675 million. Ondas described ULTRA at the time as a long-endurance autonomous aircraft that provides multi-day ISR over large areas, with tens of thousands of operational flight hours.

With DZYNE, Ondas created Ondas Sentinel, a division unifying its U.S. defense portfolio, led by World View CEO Ryan Hartman, with DZYNE co-founder Matt McCue as Chief Technology Officer. DZYNE’s portfolio also includes LEAP, IonStrike, Dronebuster, Blitz and the Grasshopper cargo system, which Ondas lists as carrying up to 500 pounds of cargo.

In its second-quarter results, released on August 13, 2026, Ondas reported record quarterly revenue of $83.8 million and an $18.8 million ULTRA order captured in July for an unnamed customer’s current operational need. The company put its pro forma backlog, including DZYNE and Cyberhawk, at approximately $757 million.

The Stemme agreement follows Ondas’ earlier purchase of UK-based Rotron Aerospace, completed on March 16, 2026, which added vertical take-off and landing platforms, long-range unmanned aircraft and aero-engines. Ondas said Rotron will serve as its UK-based go-to-market platform.

What comes next

Before closing, the Stemme deal needs customary conditions and regulatory approvals to be met. Ondas has not said where in the United States the planned 345,000 square feet of airframe production space will be located, or when it will open.

Galaxy 1 Communications and Viasat have signed a production agreement that takes Velaris, Viasat’s satellite communications service for uncrewed aircraft, out of proof-of-concept work and into commercial delivery. Galaxy 1 will run the partner enablement platform around the service, from onboarding and billing to remote terminal management.

The companies announced the step in a press release dated November 2, 2026, from Carlsbad, California. It follows two years of joint development, integration, testing and proof-of-concept work, after which the companies say they have validated the capabilities needed for production service delivery. They described the transition as a foundation for commercial growth beyond connectivity.

What Galaxy 1 takes on in production

Velaris is Viasat’s satellite communications services platform for autonomous and uncrewed aviation, combining connectivity, operational services and a partner ecosystem. According to the release, Viasat is scaling it with its L-band satellite capabilities for autonomous delivery aircraft carrying logistics and medicine, flying taxis, and inspection aircraft used in emergencies and remote industrial work. Partners include aircraft manufacturers, operators, service providers and technology partners.

Under the agreement, Galaxy 1 provides the partner enablement platform across three areas:

• Operational support and commercial enablement: onboarding, provisioning, billing and reporting.
• Infrastructure and service management: network infrastructure, remote terminal management through Galaxy 1’s Remote Terminal Manager (RTM) platform, and tools to activate, monitor, configure and manage uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) services, including incident management and service restoration.
• Integration, automation and visibility: application programming interface (API) integration with third-party UAV applications and partner platforms, operational visibility, terminal lifecycle management and increasingly automated service delivery.

Martyn Durrant, Chief Commercial Officer of Galaxy 1 Communications, said that “Moving into production is an important milestone and a strong validation of the platform” the companies developed over two years. He said the goal was to build operational and commercial infrastructure for a scalable UAV and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem, not only to provide connectivity.

Sandeep Moorthy, Senior Vice President and GM, Advanced NTN Solutions, New Ventures at Viasat, said Viasat is “at the center of a growing ecosystem” for uncrewed connectivity. He said partners need scalable frameworks to deploy, manage and scale, and that the collaboration strengthens the partner network and speeds up services worldwide.

How the Velaris partner model was built

Galaxy 1’s role dates to a collaboration it announced with Viasat on March 3, 2026, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In that release, Galaxy 1 described its Distribution Partner-as-a-Service (DPaaS) model as a managed operational layer that handles provisioning, billing, compliance oversight and integration, rather than a traditional distributor. Its stated purpose was to help UAV and AAM companies move from proof-of-concept to commercially scaled, regulated deployment, with a multi-API integration layer linking flight planning, tracking and safety tools, and monitoring through its IBIS and RTM platforms.

On May 5, 2026, Viasat said L2 Aviation had joined the Velaris ecosystem through Galaxy 1, the arrangement AirPro News covered when L2 Aviation joined the Velaris ecosystem. L2, an avionics design, engineering, certification, manufacturing and installation specialist with nearly three decades of experience in aircraft modifications, is to support the integration and certification of satellite communications for uncrewed aircraft systems and AAM platforms as they move from demonstration to deployment.

Velaris predates Galaxy 1’s involvement. In August 2024, Viasat said it had integrated its Velaris L-band satellite terminal into a multi-link communications system with Avionics Networks, a developer of communication systems for UAVs. Use cases named at the time included drones delivering medical supplies and organs, uncrewed search and rescue aircraft, agriculture, safety scanning on oil rigs and aircraft fighting wildfires.

The service and the network behind it

Viasat’s Velaris product page describes a dedicated satellite communications service for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations. It lists voice, command and control (C2), health monitoring, uncrewed traffic management (UTM) integration and video surveillance through a single connection, along with support for one controller operating multiple aircraft from a central location.

Viasat calls its hybrid satellite and cellular terminal its “smallest and lightest terminal,” with a listed height of 83mm, and says partners offer miniaturized terminals weighing “as little as 300g.” The page says the service runs on Viasat’s global fleet of L-band satellites and that further I-8 satellites will launch in the coming years. Partners shown on the page include Avionics Networks, Bellwether, Dimetor and Honeywell, whose satcom antenna work for BVLOS drones AirPro News has also covered.

The page says Velaris was created by the team behind Iris and SwiftBroadband-Safety (SB-S), which Viasat describes as the only safety-certified IP-connectivity service for crewed aviation. It names no specific certification for Velaris itself.

Viasat describes itself as a global communications company with offices in 24 countries; it completed its acquisition of Inmarsat in May 2023. Galaxy 1 Communications provides managed satellite connectivity and secure Internet of Things (IoT) enablement and cites more than 20 years of expertise. The November release does not disclose financial terms, customer numbers or which operators will use the production service.

Tekever will set up an operational presence in Odense, Denmark, its first in the Nordic region, and Denmark’s Export and Investment Fund (EIFO) has signed a commitment to invest in the company through a new closing of its Series D round. Tekever announced both steps on November 6, 2026, after a meeting in Copenhagen with Denmark’s Minister of Defence, Jeppe Bruus.

In its press release, the company said it is creating a Danish entity, has made progress on agreements with local partners and is preparing to recruit, and that the Danish presence will be built up in phases depending on demand and approvals. The site joins what Tekever calls a connected European network that already includes Portugal, the UK, France, Germany and Estonia, following the recent launch of its German hub in Munich.

Why Tekever chose Odense

Tekever said it chose Odense for its established drone and robotics ecosystem. The company named Odense Robotics, UAS Denmark’s International Test Center and the University of Southern Denmark’s SDU Drone Center and Flight Lab as the local assets that give it access to Danish testing and research, specialist companies and talent. Odense Municipality has welcomed the plans, according to the company.

Tekever already works with Danish partners and said it sees opportunities in defence, security and technology. It also plans to explore with Danish stakeholders how its dual-use systems could help monitor critical offshore energy infrastructure. The release gives no opening date, headcount or investment figure for the Danish site.

Ricardo Mendes, CEO of Tekever, said: “Establishing our first operational presence in Denmark gives TEKEVER a platform” to work with customers and partners across the region. He called EIFO’s investment “an important milestone” and said Denmark’s strengths in drone testing, robotics and research form a strong foundation for collaboration. “Over time, we aim to contribute to Danish sovereign industrial and technological capabilities,” Mendes said, adding the wider Nordic region to that aim.

Peder Lundquist, CEO at EIFO, said: “With this investment, EIFO is supporting TEKEVER’s continued growth”. He said the investment brings a European defence company closer to Denmark and creates potential for more collaboration, technology development and Danish industrial participation in European defence.

How the EIFO commitment fits the Series D

The Danish investment is part of Tekever’s US$580 million Series D financing. The first close, announced on September 23, 2026, valued the company at US$6.4 billion. UC Investments, the investment office of the University of California, and Baillie Gifford led that close, which was UC Investments’ first direct investment in Europe. Merlyn Advisors joined as a new strategic investor, and existing shareholders Crescent Cove, Ventura Capital and Iberis Capital continued to invest.

When it announced the first close, Tekever said that close covered most of the fundraise and that it expected additional Series D closings over the following months to bring in new strategic investors. EIFO enters through one of those new closings. The size of its investment was not disclosed.

Tekever says the funding will support international expansion, industrial and technological capabilities and strategic acquisitions. The company, which describes itself as Europe’s leading provider of AI-powered autonomous systems, develops autonomous systems for defence, security and civil applications.

AR5 operations from HMS Queen Elizabeth

On November 4, 2026, an AR5 operated from the flight deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth during Heavy Lift Challenge 3, the first time the type had operated from a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, according to Tekever. The aircraft took off from the company’s Flight Operations and Training Centre in Atouguia da Baleia, Portugal, flew for around 90 minutes to reach the carrier, completed two landings and two take-offs from the deck, and returned to Atouguia da Baleia on a flight of approximately 120 minutes.

The trial explored how fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft could support logistics, sustainment and maritime intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) missions, and how they could operate alongside other systems in a carrier group. The Royal Navy, the British Army, the RAF and industry partners delivered the wider trials.

Tiago Nunes, Tekever’s Director of Platforms, said: “Operating an AR5 from a carrier for the first time marks an important step.” Lieutenant Commander David Burton, trials sponsor for Navy Capability at the Royal Navy, said: “The successful operation of a TEKEVER AR5 from HMS Queen Elizabeth has provided valuable insight.”

The UK programmes behind the AR5

The carrier trial follows Tekever’s contract worth up to £400 million with the UK Ministry of Defence under Project CORVUS, announced on September 16, 2026. Under CORVUS, Tekever will supply the British Army with the AR5 long-endurance uncrewed aerial system for persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Tekever’s Series D release described CORVUS as a programme worth up to £400 million over ten years.

The Ministry of Defence selected the AR5, which Tekever says draws on operational experience that includes more than 50,000 operational flight hours flown in Ukraine since 2022. AR5 manufacturing for the programme will be centred at the company’s Swindon facility, and CORVUS is expected to begin entering British Army service later in 2026. Tekever is separately running OVERMATCH, a five-year, £400 million UK investment programme focused on research, infrastructure and defence technology, including AI and autonomy.

For Denmark, the next steps Tekever has set out are the creation of its Danish entity, local recruitment and a phased build-up in Odense, each tied to demand and approvals. In the UK, the milestone to watch is CORVUS beginning to enter British Army service.