[Discussion] Pentagon Picks Five Winners for Small Drone Lethality Challenge

Pentagon names five winners in Drone Dominance lethality challenge

The Department of Defense has selected Bravo Ordnance, Kela Defense, Kraken Kinetics, Mountain Horse, and Northrop Grumman as winners of its Drone Dominance “Lethality Prize Challenge,” a competition intended to identify weapon payloads for Group 1 unmanned aircraft systems weighing 20 pounds or less.

The award, posted on the competition website, may give the five companies an advantage as the Pentagon moves to equip large numbers of small drones under its broader Drone Dominance initiative. The department has not released additional details on the evaluation process or on the specific submissions from all five winners.

Focus on scalable, low-cost payloads

When the challenge was announced on Sam.gov in early April, the government said it was seeking payload solutions that could be produced at scale and at low cost as small drone procurement expands.

According to the solicitation, “Solutions must be scalable to match the rapid growth of Drone Dominance platforms and cost-effective to enable mass production and fielding.” The notice added that lethal payload systems currently account for a significant share of total drone cost, making affordability and manufacturability key design requirements.

The challenge centers on arming low-cost, attritable drones, including one-way attack systems that the military wants to buy in large quantities over a compressed timeline.

Companies describe faster contracting and certification paths

Although the Pentagon declined to elaborate publicly, two winning companies said the designation could accelerate both procurement and safety approvals.

Northrop Grumman said in a statement that its selection establishes the company as a “preferred” provider for advanced payloads to support rising small-drone production. The company said it plans to offer its Common UAS Payload, described as an off-the-shelf fuze and effects module.

Bravo Ordnance said it submitted its HitchHiker payload, a 2.5-kilogram, or 5.5-pound, munition designed to comply with the Picatinny Common Lethality Integration Kit standard for arming low-cost drones. Kevin Landtroop, Bravo’s chief strategy officer and general counsel, said the challenge selection could shorten the safety review timeline to roughly eight weeks rather than months or years.

Landtroop also said the Drone Dominance Program plans to purchase 60,000 units in its second phase, and that the company now sees a clearer pathway to orders in the thousands or tens of thousands. Bravo, he noted, is an 18-month-old hardware startup, and the HitchHiker is its first scaled product.

Broader $1 billion small-drone push

The lethality competition is one part of a larger Pentagon effort to expand the use of small unmanned systems and increase industrial capacity to build them. In mid-2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued directives aimed at accelerating the adoption of small drones and strengthening the defense industrial base.

Under Drone Dominance, the department intends to spend about $1 billion on small lethal drones within two years. Army leaders are also working toward an Oct. 1 deadline to field some one-way attack drones to every squad.

Previous airframe competition and near-term orders

The payload challenge follows the program’s earlier “gauntlet” competition focused on the aircraft themselves. In February, the DoD said 11 firms that took part in that gauntlet would receive orders, and another round is planned later this year.

In March, Travis Metz, the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program manager, told lawmakers the department was preparing to order 30,000 one-way attack drones within days as it determined the first winners of the initiative.

The remaining three lethality challenge winners — Kela Defense, Kraken Kinetics, and Mountain Horse — did not publicly detail the payloads they entered.

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