October 2026 Edition

Last month I wrote that the CR, the stopgap bill keeping the government funded, installed a freeze. October is what that freeze looks like. The fiscal year began this month on October 1 under a continuing congressional resolution that runs through December 11, and for defense it bars new program starts and production above FY2026 rates.

The companies didn't wait. Antares announced the DOE's approval of their Mark-1 Nuclear Safety Design. The Air Force announced that an F-22 pilot directed Anduril's Fury in flight. Chaos unveiled VESPID interceptors, Arbor hit full power on its 1-megawatt pilot turbine, Stoke shipped its second stage to test, Impulse launched its fourth Mira, and Volund debuted its first engine.

The spending decision is still ahead. Congress has to pass full-year appropriations or another stopgap before December 11.

Cyrus is proud to support transformative companies building the physical backbone of American dominance:

Portfolio Spotlight

Arbor Energy

On October 13 Arbor announced the turbine inside ATLAS, its 1-megawatt pilot system, has run at supercritical conditions, and called it the answer to the last open science question in its power system. The same day, in a separate post, Arbor's CEO Brad Hartwig wrote that the team reached full power on the 1-megawatt direct-fired sCO2 (supercritical carbon dioxide) turbocompressor, "clocking >60,000 RPM and more than 2 hours of run time," and that in the next several weeks it would demonstrate its power turbine, integrate its recuperator and start 24/7 testing of the full closed-loop pilot. The company’s HALCYON 25-megawatt commercial system, is anticipated to come online in 2028.

Icarus

On October 14 LinkedIn named Icarus to its Top Startups 2026 list of the 50 U.S. companies on the rise, one of 35 newcomers on a list alongside names like Anthropic and Saronic. LinkedIn also put Icarus on its Los Angeles list, and the company says it ranked No. 2 in LA and is hosting a recruiting event on November 5. The ranking is built on hiring momentum and talent pull, which is the right signal for a two-year-old company building solar stratospheric aircraft out of El Segundo.

Volund Manufacturing

Volund debuted its VT-100 at the Air Force Innovation Expo in Tucson on October 26–27, with some of its first test units on display. It is a 100-pound-thrust-class engine built specifically for attritable munitions. Back in June the company set out to fly prototype engines with partners this year and start initial production in early 2027. Showing hardware to the Air Force with two months left on that clock is a good sign.

Investment Opportunities & Updates

Antares Nuclear

On October 23 Antares announced that DOE approved the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement for Mark-1, its first electricity-producing reactor. Antares says Mark-1 is designed to run at full electrical power for several months in 2027 at Idaho National Laboratory, using the same core, TRISO fuel and test facility as Mark-0. For context, Mark-0 went from its NSDA approval to criticality in 218 days, a month ahead of the July 4 target the company set itself. Its CEO describes Mark-1 as commercially representative of the plant Antares plans for Fort Bragg under Army Janus in 2028. Earlier in the month, Chief Nuclear Officer Rian Bahran met Under Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno. If the second reactor runs on the first one's clock, Antares is producing power at INL next year.

Anduril Industries

On October 16 the Air Force announced that an F-22 pilot, acting as an airborne "quarterback," directed a YFQ-44A Fury in flight from Edwards earlier this month, with Fury's onboard autonomy turning high-level commands into maneuvers and simulated combat tasks. The Air Force wants 500 combat-ready semi-autonomous systems by 2032. The open question is money. As Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich put it on October 1, "you can't go do production without production funding," and the FY2027 request includes $996.5 million to build Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs), the Air Force’s drone wingmen. Down under, Australia's Defence Department revealed on October 19 that the Ghost Shark vehicles Anduril builds for the Royal Australian Navy can carry up to 12 sea mines and launch Altius drones. The aircraft works. Congress decides when it gets built.

Chaos Inc.

On October 12 Chaos unveiled VESPID, a family of very low-cost interceptors for Group 1 to 3 drones and one-way attack threats, and showed it at AUSA that week. Mk 0 is man-portable; Mk 1 is faster and fires from a multitube launcher for high-density sites. Chaos says it expects initial capacity of 12,000 interceptors a year, scalable to 50,000, all cued by its own multistatic radars. Chaos already found the drones. Now it can knock them down, at a price that makes sense in a war of attrition.

Critical Loop

On October 22 Critical Loop introduced a "Power-Ready Industrial Portfolio," partnering with commercial real estate developers to put certified battery storage and power controls on industrial sites before a tenant ever signs a lease. Earlier in the month Fast Company named Critical Loop to its 2026 Next Big Things in Tech list, and its Cygnus controller now appears on PG&E's Flex Connect approved provider list. If grid power is the bottleneck, selling a building that already has power is a smart way to sell around it.

Dominion Dynamics

On October 13 at AUSA, Dominion and Ukraine's TENCORE signed an MoU to build TENCORE's TerMIT uncrewed ground vehicle in Canada, running Dominion's AuraNet software. Dominion told BetaKit it plans initial production in 2027 once the technology transfer and technician training are done. TENCORE says it has delivered more than 5,000 of these vehicles to Ukrainian units since 2024. That is a combat-proven vehicle getting a North American production line.

Gitai

GITAI had a busy week on the test stand. On October 12 it posted a live-fire test of its TDACS, the small thrusters that steer an interceptor in flight, saying "after multiple iterations, the system is getting closer to what we want it to be." The next day it showed its thrust vector control system, which steers a rocket by angling its exhaust, running on a full-scale solid rocket motor, which it calls critical to interceptor maneuverability. That's the hardware behind its spot in the Space Force's Space-Based Interceptor program.

Hemispheric AI

This month Greenfield Partners named Hemispheric to its Disruptors60 Class of 2026 at TechCrunch Disrupt. The company's team also launched a new website, and it laid out where Descartes, its brain-activity foundation model, starts with pharma: measuring whether a CNS drug is actually doing something in the brain, and at what dose, in early-phase trials. Psychiatric drug development has lacked an objective readout for decades. That's the gap Hemispheric is going after.

Impulse Space

Impulse launched its fourth Mira spacecraft, LEO Express 4, on October 20 aboard SpaceX's Bandwagon-5 from Cape Canaveral. Two days later the company said the vehicle was healthy and moving through checkout ahead of on-orbit maneuvers. There are no customer payloads on this one; it's a flight to prove out Mira's upgraded propulsion, including more maneuvering range (higher delta-v) and rapid back-to-back thruster firings. Four Miras in, Impulse is iterating in orbit the way most companies iterate on the ground.

Stoke Space

On October 14 Stoke posted that Stage 2 had left its factory for the last time. It's now in Moses Lake, Washington to fill its tanks with super-cold propellant to prove they hold (cryo proof testing) and fire its Andromeda engine on the stand before it ships to Cape Canaveral. Stoke is still targeting Nova's first flight for early 2027; Ars Technica thinks late spring or summer is more realistic. Either way, a flight stage leaving the factory is the moment a rocket program gets real.

Market Insights

The Continuing Resolution sets specific limits.

The continuing resolution funds the government through December 11 at largely FY2026 rates, and for the Pentagon it bars new programs, production increases and certain multiyear contracts. Breaking Defense counted more than 150 new programs caught up in it, including billions for new drones and a roughly $17.5 billion request for Golden Dome, the planned missile-defense shield with less than $400 million in the base budget. As Sen. Chris Coons put it, "We are going to be in a mad dash to try and avoid a full-year CR." If Congress doesn't act, funding lapses December 12.

Hormuz: the accounts differ by source.

On October 25 CENTCOM said more than 3,000 commercial vessels had transited the strait with its support over six months, primary routes were clear of Iranian mines, and over 95% of recent ships passed safely. The same day, the Joint Maritime Information Center rated the threat level severe, with traffic still well below 2025 levels. Reuters reported a record 28 attacks on shipping in October, and Iran says its offer to reopen the strait still stands if the U.S. lifts its port blockade. The baseline tells the story: before the war, roughly 107 cargo ships crossed every day. In early October it was closer to 15.

Licensing is moving to meet the reactors.

On October 22 the NRC finalized a rule letting companies use data from DOE and Department of War reactor demonstrations to support commercial license applications, effective November 25. "This is not a shortcut; it is not a compromise," said Chairman Ho Nieh, who pointed to roughly 18-month reviews for first-of-a-kind designs and 12 months after that. For companies testing reactors at INL today, the work they're doing now counts toward the commercial license later.

Flexible grid connections are becoming a tariff.

California's ISO took up a flexible interim interconnection framework for large loads this month, with Board consideration set for October 28. It builds on the CPUC's February order requiring PG&E and SCE to offer Flexible Service Connections, where load behind UL 3141-certified controls gets favorable treatment. Connect now, flex when the grid is tight. That's quickly becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Retail power prices: a dip with an asterisk.

Heatmap and MIT's Electricity Price Hub put the average U.S. retail price at 19.6 cents per kilowatt-hour in September, down from 20 cents a year ago. But that's mostly California shifting its Climate Credit; without it prices were flat. Average bills were about $180 a month, up from $173, after an all-time high of $217 in July.

Until Next Time

October was a month of hardware: a turbine at full power, a reactor design cleared for its next step, a pilot directing a drone wingman, an interceptor unveiled, a rocket stage on its way to test, a spacecraft in orbit and a new engine on display. The next dates belong to Congress: December 11 for the stopgap funding deadline, December 12 for a possible shutdown.

Thank you for reading.

If you're in LA, reach out. Always happy to connect.

Infrastructure determines destiny.

Regards,
Jordan Yashari
Founder & General Partner
Cyrus Ventures