Department of Defense
Every UASFeed story on Department of Defense — across defense, counter-UAS, industry, commercial, policy, and tech, newest first.
-
Defense & Combat
Neros Triples to $2.5B Valuation on FPV Attack-Drone Demand
Neros raised $250M at a $2.5B valuation as it races to scale Archer FPV attack-drone production toward 1 million units a year, backed by a $500M Army IDIQ.
-
Industry & Contracts
Neros Triples to $2.5B Valuation in $250M Series C, Adds Bandit Interceptor to Product Line
Los Angeles drone maker Neros raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion valuation on August 11, 2026, funding a new Bandit counter-UAS interceptor alongside its Archer AI strike drone as it chases 1 million units/year of production by 2028.
-
Tech & Builds
DARPA's Lift Challenge Falls Just Short of 4x Payload Goal as Avidrone's Katana Tops the Field
Avidrone's single-rotor Katana won DARPA's Lift Challenge with a 3.84:1 payload-to-weight ratio, narrowly missing the agency's 4x target as dozens of teams competed for a $6.5 million prize pool at the Air Force Museum in Dayton.
-
Counter-UAS
Marine Corps Pays Epirus $11M to Push HAVOC Microwave Counter-Drone System Toward Production
The Navy's Office of Naval Research awarded Epirus $11 million on August 10, 2026 to mature its vehicle-mounted HAVOC high-power microwave weapon for Marine Corps air-defense units racing to counter swarming drones.
-
Industry & Contracts
First Production Laser: AeroVironment's $400M Locust Deal Moves Directed Energy From Prototype to Product Line
Bloomberg reports the Army will buy at least $400M of AeroVironment's Locust counter-drone lasers — the Pentagon's first production contract for a directed-energy system beyond the prototype phase — sending AVAV up ~8-9% and turning the E-HEL program of record from negotiation into recurring revenue.
-
Industry & Contracts
Pentagon's Counter-Drone Marketplace Expands as Kaizen's $15M Platform Crosses $21M in Sales
JIATF-401's vetted C-UAS Marketplace, built by startup Kaizen under a $15M contract, has processed $21M in purchases and added the UK and Romania as allied buyers while linking to the Foreign Military Sales Fast Lane.
-
Industry & Contracts
19 Drone Makers, One Fort Carson Proving Ground: Inside the Pentagon's $300M Gauntlet II Shootout
Nineteen finalists are trucking 120 attack drones apiece to Fort Carson this August, the live-fire elimination round of a $1.1B Pentagon program racing toward a 200,000-drone fleet by 2027.
-
Defense & Combat
F-Drones' Ukrainian F10 Quadcopter Enters US Service Under Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program
Ukrainian manufacturer F-Drones delivered the first 2,000 F10 FPV strike quadcopters to US forces on July 31, becoming the first Ukrainian drone cleared for export to the US under the Pentagon's $1 billion Drone Dominance Program.
-
Industry & Contracts
Pentagon Commits Up to $820M to Performance Drone Works to Build Domestic Drone Component Supply Chain
The Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital signed a conditional loan of up to $820 million with Performance Drone Works on July 31, 2026, to mass-produce propulsion, power/control, and vision-system components for Group 1/2 drones industry-wide.
-
Counter-UAS
Air Force's $500M 'Domestic Shield' Program Fields ARGUS-XL Counter-Drone Sensor Platform
AeroVironment and Teledyne FLIR Defense unveiled the ARGUS-XL multi-sensor counter-drone platform on July 29, 2026, fusing radar, EO/IR and command-and-control software to protect US installations under the Air Force-led JIATF-401 Domestic Shield program.
-
Counter-UAS
Pentagon's Counter-Drone Task Force Publishes 'Small Drones, Big Problems' Handbook
JIATF 401, the Army-led counter-UAS task force stood up last fall, has released a first-principles handbook aimed at giving the military, agencies, industry and academia a shared vocabulary and layered-defense framework for fighting small drones.
-
Industry & Contracts
XTEND and JFB Construction Close In on $1.5B Merger to Form Nasdaq-Listed XTEND AI Robotics
SEC filings show Israeli drone-robotics firm XTEND and Nasdaq-listed JFB Construction advancing toward a $1.5B all-stock reverse merger that would list XTEND AI Robotics as XTND, as XTEND also closes its Atlas acquisition and lands a spot in a $1B Pentagon drone program.
