The Von Braun Center was buzzing Tuesday morning as the 29th annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium got underway, with giant missiles, drones, military vehicles and some of the defense industry’s biggest names filling the exhibit halls.
The annual SMD Symposium, which runs through Thursday, has become a major gathering point for the global space and missile defense community. For North Alabama, the event offers something more than a showcase. It puts the region’s defense industry directly in front of the people shaping the next generation of military technology and requirements.
And Huntsville companies are taking advantage of it.
A global stage for Huntsville companies
Radiance Technologies, a Huntsville-based defense contractor and longtime participant in the symposium, is among the local companies using SMD to showcase its work and connect with potential customers and partners.
Darien Hammett, chief operating officer of Radiance, said the company has a particularly long relationship with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), which he described as Radiance’s longest-standing customer.
“We’re growing in all of our areas, especially in Huntsville,” Hammett said, adding that Radiance sees opportunities to expand its work with SMDC into areas where the company does not currently have a presence.
Radiance is continuing to expand its work across areas including secure microelectronics, directed-energy systems, hypersonics, cyber and advanced research for the Defense Department and intelligence community.
For a company headquartered in Huntsville but working with customers around the country, Hammett said bringing the space and missile defense community together in Huntsville also gives local companies an opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and pursue new work.
“From a new-work perspective, from the existing-work perspective, just future work,” Hammett said. “It’s all around.”
North Alabama’s defense footprint
More than 9,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors are attending SMD this year, bringing military leaders, government officials, engineers and defense companies from across the country and around the world to Huntsville.
U.S. Rep. Dale Strong (R-Huntsville) was among those making the rounds at the symposium Tuesday morning.
“You see people from all over the country that have joined us right here in Rocket City, USA, Huntsville, Alabama,” Strong said.
The scale of the symposium reflects the scale of the industry surrounding it.
Redstone Arsenal is home to the Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, while NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Cummings Research Park and the University of Alabama in Huntsville add layers of research, engineering and workforce expertise.
Major defense companies including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Leidos, L3Harris, Parsons and others have substantial operations in the region, while hundreds of smaller companies support programs ranging from missile defense and hypersonics to space, cyber and artificial intelligence.
Strong pointed specifically to Golden Dome, the ambitious homeland missile defense initiative that is expected to draw on many of the companies and capabilities represented at SMD.
“You think about Golden Dome and what General Guetlein means to everybody in this room. It’s unbelievable, and a very quick timeline to execute,” Strong said. “Many of these companies will be participating.”
Gen. Michael Guetlein, who is overseeing development of Golden Dome, previously served at the Missile Defense Agency at Redstone Arsenal from 2017 to 2019.
Strong said that behind North Alabama’s growing defense footprint is a mission the region has long embraced: supporting the U.S. warfighter.
“We understand what the mission is,” Strong said. “We’ve got to be sure that, number one, we do it the most cost-effective way we can. But let’s put the best technology in the hands of the U.S. warfighter.”
The next generation gets a seat at SMD
While the scale of SMD is impressive, the symposium is also giving smaller startups a chance to make an impression.
Six defense-tech startups are showcasing their products this week through the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber’s Redstone Regional Accelerator, an initiative designed to support and scale defense and technology startups in North Alabama.
One of those startups is Argonath, which is developing a platform for building, deploying and managing artificial intelligence agents across large organizations.
Christopher Niblett, the company’s chief technology officer, said Argonath recently completed the Chamber’s DefenseTech Accelerator and was given an opportunity to showcase its technology at SMD.
“It’s a roller coaster,” Niblett said. “But generally speaking, building a startup is a roller coaster.”
For startups, he said, the symposium offers something that can be difficult to replicate: direct access to potential customers and partners.
“Being at SMD is excellent. It’s super easy to connect, super easy to meet customers, partners,” Niblett said.
For Niblett, the opportunity is hard to miss.
“Being here, we’re seeing that just about everybody here that has a booth could probably use our technology,” he said.
