Redwire Invests in Phased Array Antennas for Warfighter Networks

Redwire said on August 25, 2026 that it is making a strategic investment in next-generation phased array antenna technology, aiming to accelerate development and production of systems for space-based military data networks. The company did not disclose the size of the investment, but the announcement lands three weeks after Redwire reported record second-quarter liquidity of $607.8 million — a balance sheet its chief executive said was built to fund exactly this kind of spending.

The investment will fund phased array antenna systems designed for low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, and geostationary orbit missions, with dynamic beam steering, improved link reliability, and increased throughput for military communications. Redwire framed the work around the defense industry’s shift toward distributed architectures and proliferated constellations: networks of many small satellites rather than a few large ones, each of which needs its own communications hardware.

“Space data networks are evolving at an unprecedented pace, and phased arrays are a foundational technology enabling that transformation,” said Mike Sharkey, Senior Vice President of Redwire Defense Tech, RF Systems, in the release. “By investing heavily in this domain, Redwire is ensuring our customers can deploy communication solutions that are more flexible, more powerful, and more resilient than ever before.”

The announcement commits no contract, names no customer, and states no production timeline. What it does is point a strengthened balance sheet at a product line Redwire has spent four years building — and that now sits inside the company’s fastest-growing segment.

A Product Line Built One Contract at a Time

Redwire’s RF Systems group, based in Longmont, Colorado, is a merchant supplier of tactical communications and sensing payloads to Tier 1 aerospace and defense primes, and the company says it has now delivered more than 200 flight antennas. The path to that count runs through a series of disclosed milestones.

In June 2022, Redwire won a contract to deliver 42 high-gain antennas for an undisclosed national security customer building a low Earth orbit constellation, with the release citing “significant follow-on potential.” In November 2023, the Space Development Agency completed the first-ever Link 16 network entry from space, transmitting tactical messages from Tranche 0 Transport Layer satellites to ground radios in demonstrations held November 21–27, 2023. Redwire said its L-Band Link 16 helical antennas, delivered to York Space Systems (YSS ) for those satellites, enabled that transmission, and that it had designed, tested, and manufactured three Link 16 antennas for the mission.

Capacity followed the orders. In January 2024, Redwire opened a 26,000-square-foot manufacturing and testing facility in Longmont with an advanced RF testing chamber, expanding its footprint there by 70 percent. At the time, the Longmont team had delivered antennas supporting more than 50 spacecraft for a national security constellation, with factory capacity above 120 antennas per year. In August 2024, the company was selected to provide multiple shipsets of RF payloads and control electronics to a European defense contractor, work the August 25, 2026 release says is currently in production. The new investment follows what Redwire describes as a major capital upgrade of its RF flight electronics assembly facilities.

The Balance Sheet Behind the Announcement

The phased array spending arrives as Redwire’s finances give it room to move. In its second-quarter 2026 results, reported on August 5, 2026, the company posted:

• Revenue of $117.1 million, up 89.6% year-over-year, a record
• Record contracted backlog of $542.1 million as of June 30, 2026, up from $411.2 million at the end of 2025
• Total liquidity of $607.8 million, including $557.0 million in cash and cash equivalents
• A book-to-bill ratio of 1.42 for the quarter, meaning new awards outpaced recognized revenue
• Research and development expense of $12.5 million in the quarter, up from $1.7 million a year earlier

“With a record Backlog of $542.1 million and a strengthened balance sheet to enable strategic investments, Redwire is scaling to meet the strong demand we see for our mission critical space and defense tech offerings,” Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President Peter Cannito said in the earnings release. First-half 2026 cash flow shows how the balance sheet was built: Redwire raised $566.2 million from common stock issuance during the six months ended June 30, 2026, while cutting its aggregate term loans from $90.0 million to $50.0 million during the second quarter.

Where the RF Business Sits in Redwire’s Books

The RF Systems work sits within Redwire’s Defense Tech segment, which has become the company’s growth engine since the Edge Autonomy acquisition closed in the second quarter of 2025. Defense Tech generated $61.9 million of revenue in the second quarter of 2026 (more than half the company total, against $5.1 million in the year-ago quarter) and posted $14.1 million in segment adjusted EBITDA while the Space segment ran a $4.2 million loss. Defense Tech backlog reached $220.2 million as of June 30, 2026, nearly double the $111.4 million recorded at the end of 2025, and the segment’s book-to-bill for the quarter was 2.35.

Redwire reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue forecast of $450 million to $500 million, with $214.0 million recorded in the first half. A product-line investment like the phased array program draws on the same pool as that forecast: the company funded $25.1 million of research and development expense in the first half of 2026, and its backlog table counts only firm funded contracts — which means none of the spending announced August 25, 2026 comes with offsetting orders in backlog yet.