One year ago, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey stood in central Ohio and made a nearly $1 billion promise: to build a “hyperscale” manufacturing campus that would do for defense what Henry Ford did for the automobile. Today, that vision—Arsenal-1—is no longer a theoretical rendering. It’s a massive construction site where the walls of Building 1 are rising.
When Anduril first announced its selection of the 500-acre site near Rickenbacker International Airport in January 2025, the company framed it as a “monumental step” toward rebuilding the American defense industrial base. Twelve months later, the project is moving at the “software speed” the company is known for, with production of its first autonomous fighter jet, the YFQ-44A, slated to begin by the second quarter of 2026.
Breaking the defense ‘Valley of Death’
The defense industry has long been plagued by the “valley of death”—the gap between a successful prototype and mass production. Arsenal-1 is Anduril’s answer. Unlike traditional defense plants designed for low-volume, handcrafted jets, this facility is “software-defined.”…