Defense Tech Spotlight: Aeon
Episode 10
I had the privilege of speaking with Naweed Tahmas, Co-Founder and CEO of Aeon. Here are the highlights of our conversation:
What is Aeon?
Aeon is developing advanced precision missile systems better, faster and cheaper to advance US and allied military dominance.
Can you tell me a bit about your startup and the problem that you're addressing?
Aeon is a defense technology company that is building next-generation precision missile systems that are designed around low cost and scalability.
Production of precision missile systems today depends on exquisite, complex hardware that is difficult to mass produce and has in part led to the munitions crisis that the US is facing today. Their supply chains are heavily strained, depending sometimes on only a single provider that makes one specific component. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has calculated that the US will run out of precision weapons in less than a week in a conflict over Taiwan — some in the DoD say it’s really only a couple days.
Taiwan has been waiting a decade now for the weapon systems we’ve promised them and our replenish rate for systems like the Javelin and Stinger is 10-18 years… just to hit a “break even” point but still far behind in the mass we actually need. Our inventories are severely limited.
China and our adversaries, meanwhile, are mass producing advanced weapons with 24/7 automated factories and even retrofitting weapons from the 70s and 80s to build up even more mass to throw at us to expend our defenses.
We’ve seen throughout history that wars are battles of attrition and the US doesn’t have enough mass to fire — we’re aiming to change that.
You mentioned that one of the major problems with the Javelin is that it's not easily upgradable or update-able. How is your approach to the cat and mouse game of countermeasures, ex. Russia hiding tanks with countermeasures like thermal tarps and sheds now, different?
That’s what we’re seeing right now in Ukraine. The Ukrainians develop a new technology or strategy, and the Russians almost immediately develop a countermeasure — and vice versa. It’s a cat and mouse game where war moves at the speed of technology. The way we tackle this issue comes down to the core of our technology: our ODIN smart weapons software platform.
ODIN enables sensor fusion and automatic target recognition to detect targets in a variety of environments and be able to rapidly engage. It’s also designed to handle guidance, navigation, and control in EW-denied environments. Going back to your point about the cat and mouse game, our software can be rapidly updated at the depot level, so, for example, if the Russians implement a new countermeasure, we can update the software to defeat it to provide constant overmatch.
So, the weapon system does not have to come all the way back to the States and to the manufacturer to go through a software update?
Exactly — we have the capability to update in the field and depot-level but defer and comply with the DoD’s requirements on software updates.
Is reactive armor that’s on tanks one of the countermeasures you’ve considered?
Explosive reactive armor (ERA) is one of them. We are developing our software to identify the parts of the tank that don’t have ERA to strike around them.
Is the hardware you are using to build these missiles difficult to source? If part of your value proposition is that you can produce these missiles at scale, I’m assuming the components you use are easily produced.
That’s a good question and one we often get from investors. Our weapon system, the Zeus ATGM, was designed around scalability since day one. It uses standard off-the-shelf hardware that is produced by multiple suppliers — such as carbon fiber tubes and actuators. Even before working with a supplier, we always ask them if they can produce at least 10K units and in what timeframe.
Where did you get the flash of insight, that this is a critical need, and the inspiration to build a company to fill this gap you identified?
I first learned about the munitions crisis when I was still at the White House. Our arsenal is aging, and we were struggling to upgrade and mass produce our weapon systems.
My cofounder, Joe Cieslik, who heads the engineering side, had the idea to combine the latest advancements in AI with common mass hardware so that you can build at massive scale without sacrificing capability.
Your comment around using low-cost hardware reminded me of a story I heard coming out of Ukraine. Someone noticed the Ukrainians were building low-cost, attritable UAVs out of orange pvc pipe, and when they asked about it, they found out that orange pvc pipes were used in Europe to carry electrical cables. Due to the war of attrition and lack of supplies, the Ukrainians started building their drones out of common items they could find in hardware stores.
We’re seeing now that China is producing as much mass as possible to throw at us to exhaust our defense systems. They are even retrofitting old MiG-19/J-6 and MiG-21/J-7 fighter jets with modern avionics and turning them into drones. The US and our allies need more affordable weapons mass to counter this.
What are some of the major milestones that you've hit and that you're trying to hit in the future?
In the short amount of time that Aeon has existed — sometimes people think we’ve been around much longer — we’ve had successful aerodynamic flight tests, built and tested our in-house dual-thrust rocket motors, developed our own custom flight computers, and made our own laser guidance sensor.
We’ve also designed a lighter-weight launcher that is easier to carry and can be mounted onto vehicles and unmanned tanks; built out our guidance software; mapped out our supply chain; and are preparing our move to a larger manufacturing facility.
Pictured: Aeon conducts flight test of the Zeus ATGM system.
On the business development side, we’ve made significant progress that has put us years ahead of where a startup our age would typically be. We can’t share much yet on the BD front, but stay tuned.
What is your plan to go from producing small quantities of these systems, to scaling production to build thousands of these missiles?
We looked at the issues that other companies ran into, so from the beginning, our product was designed for scalability. We minimized custom components and simplified the design for mass production. As we go through the design iteration process, we see what we can cut or how we can turn three parts into one.
We’re working with local community colleges that have manufacturing technician programs to hire from to create a talent pipeline. For our supply chain, we only work with suppliers that can deliver high volume. That allows us to be able to produce at a larger scale.
That’s an interesting way to think about building a company, and it’s great to hear you’re thinking through the issue of mass production from the very beginning.
I think a lot of great companies at one point ran into the problem in the beginning, where they built an amazing, complex piece of hardware but ran into issues when they transitioned into production. Manufacturing was unfortunately an afterthought and sometimes required going back to the design stage. Before we even started designing the missile, we thought about our assembly plan and designed the product around that.
What's been the most challenging aspect of building Aeon so far?
This has been a field that’s been dominated for decades by primarily a few companies. We’re one of the newest entrants in the space. Our job is to prove to the DoD that we can build something that’s better, faster, and cheaper — and we create that trust by actually accomplishing what we say we will. At the end of the day it’s about delivering. We’ve received a lot of support throughout the process from our great government partners. We still have a way to go, but we’re on track to deliver.
Pictured: Aeon conducts tests of their dual-thrust motor developed in-house.
Thanks for reading!