U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Christian Breazeale ,left, an intelligence specialist with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, explains the controls of a small unmanned aerial system drone to Staff Sgt. Larry Shaffer, an intelligence analyst with Combat Logistics Battalion 13, Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Desiree Ruiz)
WASHINGTON — As part of its Drone Dominance initiative, the Pentagon has named five winners of a “lethality” challenge, a title that could place them ahead of other vendors in the race to snag deals to arm small drones.
On the competition’s website, the Pentagon announced that Bravo Ordnance, Kela Defense, Kraken Kinetics, Mountain Horse and Northrop Grumman have all been named winners of the recent Lethality Prize Challenge. In early April, the department announced the Lethality Prize Challenge on Sam.gov, hoping to find payloads for Group 1 drones, those weighing 20 lbs. or less.
“Solutions must be scalable to match the rapid growth of Drone Dominance platforms and cost-effective to enable mass production and fielding,” the government wrote. “At this point, the lethal payload system represents a significant portion of the total system cost; therefore, affordability and manufacturability are critical design considerations.”
