Blackstone Funds Launch Falcata With TSC and ASEI Acquisitions

Blackstone announced on October 1, 2026 that funds managed by the firm will acquire Technology Service Corporation (TSC) and Applied Systems Engineering, Inc. (ASEI) and combine them under Falcata, a newly launched defense technology company. In the announcement, dated from New York, Blackstone characterized the commitment as a significant investment to help expand America’s interceptor industrial base and counter the proliferation of inexpensive aerial threats. The release did not disclose the investment amount, a valuation, or closing terms.

Goldman Sachs (GS ) & Co. LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to Blackstone on the transaction, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal counsel, according to the release.

The release ties the formation of Falcata to a threat environment in which inexpensive drones, missiles and other weapons can be deployed at significant scale. Recent conflicts, it states, demonstrated the need for defensive systems that deliver both effectiveness and volume, increasing demand not only for more affordable interceptors but also for the critical technologies required to produce them. The combined company builds on what the release describes as decades of experience delivering mission-critical sensing, guidance, navigation and control technologies for national security missions.

Falcata brings together expertise across advanced seekers and radar technologies; guidance electronics and control actuation systems; GPS-denied navigation; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR); launchers; and related technologies supporting missile defense and other national security missions. The company will build on both acquired firms’ existing capabilities, customer relationships and programs while investing in additional technology, manufacturing capacity and talent, the release states.

Jonathan Moneymaker, Chairman of Falcata, said in the release that recent conflicts have shown lower-cost interceptors to be a cornerstone of national security strategy and that producing more of them requires greater capacity across critical sensing, guidance, navigation and control technologies. “We are building Falcata to deliver the technology America and its allies need – at the scale the mission demands,” he said.

David Kaden, Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said the platform answers a critical national security challenge, adding that with deeper resources, expanded manufacturing capacity and a unified engineering base, Falcata will help the industrial base “advance capability faster and break the supply chain chokepoints that our national defense increasingly requires.” Brandon Wolfson, CEO of Falcata, said that, partnered with Blackstone, the company has the resources to build and scale, pursue bigger challenges, invest ahead of customer needs and move critical technologies from development into production faster.

Board Composition and Stated Mission

Falcata’s website lists a five-member board of directors: Moneymaker as Chairman of the Board, Wolfson as CEO and Director, and Kaden, John Holmes and Diek Minkhorst as Directors. The site describes the company’s mission as creating next-generation sensing and strike technology that delivers warfighters continuous control over the battlespace, a concept it brands Sustained Battlespace Control. Falcata states that it delivers technologies allowing operators to blanket areas with intelligent, attritable assets capable of sensing, affecting and neutralizing adversarial threats. The site also carries a press item stating that Falcata was named a leading low-cost seeker technology in a U.S. Army competition.

The Two Acquired Companies

TSC is an employee-owned (ESOP), high-technology engineering firm based in Reston, Virginia, according to the company’s news archive. On its website, TSC states that it develops and manufactures technologies that mitigate threats to personnel and strategic resources and enhance intercept and strike precision. Its specialized radio frequency sensors provide guidance information and precision detonation timing, a product line spanning missile seekers, proximity sensors, datalinks, control assemblies and test systems.

TSC’s named products include the APEX Seekers, designed for affordable air-defense and strike engagements; the APEX Sensors radar for integration into autonomous platforms and advanced sensing applications; the VIPER proximity sensor; the AQUILA radar seeker for loitering munitions; Mobile Tracking Systems; and long-endurance airborne ISR aircraft. The company also offers the NATHUSIUS unmanned aircraft, which it describes as the longest-endurance commercial UAS in its class. TSC lists its market areas as air and missile defense, airborne systems, electronic warfare, space systems, precision weapons, and radar and fire control.

ASEI was founded in 1993 by Tim Elbert and David Gaskill, who had earlier worked on the first GPS-guided bomb under the JDAM Operational Concept Demonstration, according to the company’s about page. The firm operates engineering and testing facilities in Niceville, Florida, and Tucson, Arizona. ASEI states that its navigation systems are used in a variety of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft and weapons, and that its operational flight software performs in several inventory weapon systems and weapon launchers. The company offers munition design, analysis, integration and testing, and states that its quality management system is certified to the ISO9001 standard.

ASEI’s news record shows recent interceptor program work: the company teamed with AeroVironment, Inc. on the U.S. Army’s Next-Generation C-UAS Missile effort. According to that page, AeroVironment was selected to deliver the missile and was awarded a $95.9 million contract for the Army’s Long-Range Kinetic Interceptor program through the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center’s Aviation & Missile Technology Consortium. Under the program, AeroVironment will manufacture and deliver its Freedom Eagle (FE-1) kinetic counter-UAS missile, with ASEI among the industry team members assembled for the effort. The page describes FE-1 as a low-cost solution to neutralize Groups 2 and 3 unmanned aircraft systems while retaining residual capability against Group 1 UAS, fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, and it cites completed development milestones including a live-fire demonstration of the missile’s dual-thrust solid rocket motor, controlled test vehicle launches and warhead tests.

ASEI’s homepage now carries a banner stating that ASEI is now Falcata, along with the new company’s tagline, and directs visitors to the Falcata website.

Blackstone describes itself as the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1.3 trillion in assets under management across global strategies in real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries and hedge funds.