Army buys Red Dragon long-range attack drones
The Army recently awarded a contract to AeroVironment for the company’s new long-range, one-way attack drone called Red Dragon, the Pentagon announced Friday.
The deal, valued at more than $17 million, was awarded March 12 with an estimated completion date of April 8. It includes funding for unmanned aerial systems, battery chargers, ground control stations, launchers, critical part kit materials, training materials, and field service representative support, per the announcement.
The Red Dragon has a range of 400-plus kilometers (about 250 miles), according to the manufacturer, which is nearly four times the range of the drone maker’s Switchblade 600 loitering munition that the Army has previously purchased.
The platform, which was unveiled less than a year ago, has a payload capacity of up to 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds).
AeroVironment describes Red Dragon as a “fully autonomous capable” UAS that can perform “autonomous execution of mission objectives without reliance on continuous operator input or satellite navigation.”
The kamikaze drone, which has a software-defined architecture, is designed to operate in GPS-denied and communications-degraded environments.
The company’s SPOTR-Edge “perception system” enables detection and classification of targets, and the UAS can transmit that information to decision makers via the contractor’s DDIL radio system, according to a press release issued last year.
It’s unclear how much autonomy the Defense Department would allow the systems to have on the battlefield. For lethal operations, U.S. defense officials have said that there should be a human “on the loop” for decision-making.
The contract award announced Friday comes as the U.S. military is moving to ramp up its lethal UAS arsenal, as directed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth under his “Drone Dominance” initiative.
About two weeks ago, U.S. Central Command revealed that the U.S. military had employed a long-range one-way attack drone, known as LUCAS, for the first time in combat during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, built by SpektreWorks, has a reported range of 500 miles.
In Friday’s announcement of new Defense Department contract awards, which included mention of the Red Dragon deal, the DOD noted that AeroVironment has also been awarded a $117 million contract for procurement and delivery of the company’s P550 long-range reconnaissance drones. Work under that deal has an estimated completion date of July 23.
According to a product description, the P550 is a Group 2 “autonomous” electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) platform with a multi-sensor payload capacity of up to 15 pounds. The system can also be integrated with third-party payloads, datalinks and mission planning software, and allows for “hot-swapping” of payloads and batteries. It has a link range of 40-plus kilometers.
The Army last year awarded a contract to AV for the initial delivery of P550 drones for the Long-Range Reconnaissance program. It also awarded a deal to Edge Autonomy for that effort, which aims to boost maneuver battalions’ organic reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition capabilities.
Friday’s contract announcements did not say how many drones the Army will receive under the new deals with AeroVironment for the Red Dragon and P550 systems.
