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Unmanned Systems

Drone Dominance Program Selects 11 Finalists For Potential Orders After First Gauntlet

By Cal Biesecker

Monday, March 9th, 2026

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Drone Dominance Program Selects 11 Finalists For Potential Orders After First Gauntlet

Neros Archer First Person View drone. Photo: U.S. Marine Corps

The Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program last week selected 11 companies to receive prototype orders under the first phase of a two-year effort to equip warfighters with hundreds of thousands of relatively inexpensive one-way attack drones. The winners of Gauntlet I in order of their respective scoring from first through 11th are Skycutter, Neros, Napatree, ModalAI, Auterion, Ukrainian Defense Drones, Griffon Aerospace, Nokturnal AI, Halo Aeronautics, Ascent Aerosystems and Farage Precision. The Defense Department originally selected 25 companies to compete under…

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