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Unmanned Systems

Drone Dominance Program Round Two Likely To Include More Complex Missions

Frank Wolfe

Tuesday, March 10th, 2026

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Drone Dominance Program Round Two Likely To Include More Complex Missions

Pictured is a photo posted by Ukrainian company, General Cherry, of what the company said was a downed Russian Merlin reconnaissance drone, hit by a General Cherry AIR interceptor drone last month.

The Drone Dominance program is to expand beyond the three missions in the first round--finding stationary targets by four drones at 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 kilometers in a non-jamming environment, finding a stationary target in an urban environment, and an optional, "un-ranked" nighttime kinetic strike. Skycutter, based in the United Kingdom, teamed with Ukrainian drone manufacturer SkyFall to provide the fiber-optic Precision Shrike drone that had a nearly perfect score of 99.3 in round one, the so-called Gauntlet 1…

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