News, deep dives, and analysis — every Department of Defense story, newest first.
Department of Defense drone coverage tracks Pentagon procurement, the office structures deciding where military drone money goes, and the hardware being cleared for military purchase.
Command structure changed meaningfully this year: a Pentagon drone czar memo hands the Defense Innovation Unit the front door to a $75 billion unmanned systems portfolio, centralizing authority that used to be split across service branches. The dollar figures moving through that structure are large: the Pentagon committed $1.3 billion to drones in two days, split between shoot-down systems and domestic parts manufacturing.
The Blue UAS list is where a lot of that procurement authority becomes concrete: Mountain Horse’s Talon DT-300 putting 100 pounds of payload capacity on the Blue UAS list is a direct expansion of what buyers can acquire without a separate security review. Domestic shipbuilding is following the same defense-dollar logic: Saronic is planning a $3 billion Texas shipyard for drone ships.
The broader US Government desk and FAA desk cover the civilian regulatory side of the same policy landscape. Every Department of Defense drone story is in the feed below.
Last updated October 1, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.
Hegseth ordered a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command for Oct. 1, 2027. The memo names no commander, no budget, and needs a law Congress hasn't passed.
Neros says Gauntlet II brought a 14,000-drone order worth over $100 million, plus 800 Gauntlet I drones taken from rivals that missed their deadline.
Amprius will turn a U.S. EV battery line into a 12-million-cell drone factory. Its filing shows $22 million of the $75 million grant is funded so far.
The Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program opened Phase 3 with $450 million for 60,000 attack drones, but its listed unit prices cover at most $300 million.
Orqa drones running KEF Robotics navigation and Blue Arrow's RII software flew recon and payload missions under GPS and radio jamming in Alabama.
A Pensacola charter hauled a US Air Force Shahed-136 clone out of the Gulf near Eglin. The base confirms a test article went down but won't name it.
Neros is the only company on both Gauntlet II leaderboards, Perennial Autonomy wins deep strike, and March champion Skycutter drops to fourth.
A new federal rule lets certified local agencies detect and disable drones. The government expects about 1,500 of them to sign up within two years.
A Pentagon drone czar memo hands the Defense Innovation Unit the front door to a $75 billion unmanned systems portfolio, centralizing decision-making authority over a huge share of military drone spending that was previously spread across separate service branches.
Large and frequent. The Pentagon committed $1.3 billion to drones in two days, split between counter-drone systems and domestic component manufacturing, on top of continuing investment in new airframes and the Blue UAS approved-hardware list.
Blue UAS is the Defense Innovation Unit's list of drones cleared for military and government purchase without a case-by-case security review. Mountain Horse's Talon DT-300 putting 100 pounds of payload capacity on the Blue UAS list expands what buyers can procure off that list without added review.
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