DRONE WINNER: When it came time to choose the winner of the Navy’s big carrier-based drone tanker competition, it wasn’t the famous Predator-maker General Atomics, or F-35-maker Lockheed Martin that took the gold. It was Boeing’s Stingray, nabbing an $805 million contract to design and deliver four MQ-25A aerial refuelers to be operational by 2024.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Daily on Defense will not be publishing on Monday. Happy Labor Day and we’ll be back in action on Tuesday!

HAPPENING TODAY — McCAIN AT THE CAPITOL: Today, John McCain joins an exclusive group of past U.S. presidents and leaders who have lain in state at the Capitol. A memorial service begins at 11 a.m. House and Senate leadership as well as Vice President Mike Pence will participate in the ceremony. The Capitol rotunda will be open to the public beginning at 1 p.m.

Congress approved the rare honor and it has been granted to only 26 other people in U.S. history, including Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Rosa Parks. The last person to lie in state was Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye in 2012.

LINCOLN’S CATAFALQUE: For readers interested in a little more history, McCain’s casket will rest on the same catafalque, a wood and fabric platform, built for Lincoln. You can read more about it here.

BIDEN’S FAREWELL: Colleagues and friends of McCain gathered Thursday for a memorial ceremony at Arizona’s North Phoenix Baptist Church. Former Vice President Joe Biden, a long-time friend and sparring partner of McCain’s during his own time in the Senate, delivered a heartfelt eulogy.

“He could not stand the abuse of power. Wherever he saw it, in whatever form, in whatever ways. He loved basic values, fairness, honesty, dignity, respect, giving hate no safe harbor, leaving no one behind and understanding Americans were part of something much bigger than ourselves,” Biden said. About 3,500 mourners gathered at the church. Here is a photo gallery of the ceremony Thursday.

MCCAIN’S NAME ON NATO HQ: A push to name the new NATO headquarters in Brussels after McCain may be gaining some momentum. Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday he is drafting a Senate resolution in support of placing the former Armed Services chairman’s name on the billion-dollar facility. “There was no greater supporter of NATO than Sen. John McCain,” Rubio tweeted. “As McCain loved to say when asked why he held a certain position ‘it is the right thing to do.’ ”

NATO is reportedly considering the idea after it was first floated overseas by U.S. allies this week. A member of the British parliament and three former NATO secretaries general asked the current leader of the alliance, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, to approve it.

“Few things symbolize this alliance, and the enduring benefits of American global leadership, more vividly than the life and work of John McCain. Despite his being a U.S. senator, across Europe we all felt that John McCain III was one of our own,” according to a statement by the former NATO leaders posted by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was the 12th secretary general.

CR STILL LOOMS: Congress passed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act in record time this summer and both the House and Senate have finished their defense appropriations, months earlier than past years. But that is no guarantee the Pentagon will not get another stopgap budget this fall, Roll Call reported. That’s because time is running out for both chambers to negotiate a final appropriations bill in conference committee and pass it before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The Pentagon has been handed annual stopgap continuing resolutions for a decade and they are a deeply disliked headache for military planners. But it might just be part of the budget woes if President Trump decides to shut down the government at the end of September over funding for his wall on the Mexico border, according to Roll Call. That could endanger the delivery of troop pay and possibly shut down non-essential military operations.

STATUS QUO FOR KOREA EXERCISES: The president told Bloomberg News he is not in a hurry to solve the nuclear standoff with North Korea, after saying there is “no reason at this time” to hold joint military exercises with the South this week. “I have greater patience than any human being in the world. People don’t understand that about me,” Trump said. Meanwhile, there has been no discernible change on exercises at the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said just days ago that no decisions have been made.

“Routine planning continues for major US-ROK exercises on the peninsula in accordance with the normal exercise program planning cycle,” Lt. Col. Chris Logan, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Washington Examiner. The next large-scale exercise, or what the Pentagon calls Tier 1 exercises, likely will not occur until next year. Foal Eagle usually happens in March.

‘THE BEATLES’ GO TO GITMO: Two captured Islamic State fighters who killed American hostages and were part of a group nicknamed “The Beatles” may get sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to an NBC News report. It is part of a plan the Trump administration is weighing for 600 of the terror group’s fighters captured on the battlefields of Syria, anonymous sources told the network. Others could be sent to prisons in Iraq.

The fighters are now being held by the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces, but they are ill-equipped to handle the prisoners and the U.S. is looking for a solution. They came to fight in Syria from nearly four dozen countries but many have refused to take custody despite U.S. urging. The two “Beatles” Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh are both from London but Britain has apparently stripped their citizenship, NBC reported.

FOUR KILLED AT AIR FORCE BASE: Four passengers were killed Thursday when a small civilian airplane crashed near the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, the base confirmed Thursday evening.

Air Force officials said a Beechcraft BE-60 flying from Toledo, Ohio, crashed in a densely wooded area two miles north of the Eglin base’s runway around 10:35 a.m., local time.

PRISON TIME FOR HELPING ISIS: A soldier from Hawaii pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to trying to help the Islamic State terrorist group by supplying undercover FBI agents “secret” military documents.

Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Erik Kang admitted guilt to four counts of attempting to provide material support to ISIS.

SYRIA WARNING: Bashar Assad’s regime is on the cusp of perpetrating “the most horrific tragedy” of the Syrian civil war, a top United Nations official warned Thursday.

“There is a perfect storm coming up in front of our eyes potentially,” Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.’s envoy for Syria, told reporters. “It would be a tragic irony frankly if at almost the end of … a territorial war inside Syria, we would be witnessing the most horrific tragedy to the largest number of civilians.”

REALITY WINNER THANKS TRUMP: The former National Security Agency contractor who was sentenced to more than five years in prison for leaking classified information about Russian election meddling has a message for Trump: Thanks. Last week, the president tweeted that Reality Winner’s crime was “small potatoes” and unfair compared to Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified info.

“For 16 months those words, ‘so unfair,’ were actually not allowed by either myself, or my team or my family to really say out in the public. So I just can’t thank him enough for finally saying what everybody has been thinking for 16 months,” Winner told CBS News in a phone interview.

THE RUNDOWN

Reuters: Iran moves missiles to Iraq in warning to enemies

Wall Street Journal: Military Believes Trump’s Afghan War Plan Is Working, but Spy Agencies Are Pessimistic

Newsweek: First enlisted woman to graduate U.S. Army Ranger School

NBC News: Navy drag queen ‘Harpy Daniels’ is serving looks — and the country

Associated Press: Egypt to host war games with US for second straight year

Business Insider: The US is sending an unmistakable message to China — four B-52 bomber flights through the East and South China Seas this month

Bloomberg: Trump Says He Has ‘Patience’ for North Korea’s Kim to Make Deal

CNN: One of McCain’s final acts in office was sending a letter to a new graduate

UPI: Raytheon lands contract for CH-53, V-22 infrared systems

Military.com: Army Secretary Wants to Field Hypersonic Weapons in Next 10 Years

Reuters: Russian navy to hold drills off Syria as Idlib offensive looms

The Hill: Senators press Trump administration on Yemen civil war