Pentagon joint interagency task force created in 2025 to speed counter-drone capability to US forces and domestic installations.
US Army awarded $4.15 billion in Domestic Shield counter-drone contracts to 10 companies, within a $7 billion ceiling. The Army requires open architecture, so the test is whether one firm's radar and another's camera work on one base network.
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Digital Force Technologies won a $500 million IDIQ from Joint Interagency Task Force 401 for counter-drone systems run by its SeraphimOS edge software. By DFT's account the software classifies threats on its own, so base-defense teams end up trusting its judgement over any one sensor's.
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Pete Hegseth announced an Autonomous Warfare Command with service-like powers to develop and field drones, the first new command since 2019, per Reuters. Until it launches within a year, that buying power exists only as an interim prototyping team and a budget request.
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JIATF-401, the US counter-drone task force, announced enterprise contracts with a combined ceiling of nearly $7 billion for a mix of technologies. The choice of which system to field now falls to the units and agencies that will order through them.
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At least six countries, most on NATO's Eastern flank, have bought or are buying the $15,000 Merops drone interceptor, a US defense official said. Allies are adding a cheaper layer against Russian incursions, and the Pentagon says it is one part of a wider defence.
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Cape Canaveral's counter-drone capability will come from a Pentagon task force that selects and fields it, while the station supplies the integration and the shift crews it is still asking the Air Force to provide.
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Perseus says each Mk-III costs about $2,500 to build, a fortieth of the price of the missiles militaries have fired at cheap drones. The figure a buyer writing a requirement needs is the cost per interception.
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