In news that broke on Sunday, the U.S. Army has placed an order exceeding $52 million for more than 2,500 Skydio X10D drones. According to Skydio, that’s the largest small unmanned aircraft system procurement from a single manufacturer in the Army’s history. And the government moved fast on this one, too. According to Skydio, the Skydio X10D Army order moved from bid to award in less than 72 hours.
This Skydio X10D Army order places Skydio as the only manufacturer to span both Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of the Army’s SRR program.
The announcement lands on March 22, 2026 — three and a half weeks into an active U.S. military conflict with Iran in which drones have played a central role on both sides.
About the Skydio X10D drone
The Skydio X10D is the military variant of the company’s X10 drone. But whereas that one is used in other enterprise situations, the version with the “D” added is built for platoon-level intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). It’s designed to be rucksack-portable and deployable within minutes — the kind of small, fast eyes-in-the-sky capability that has become essential in modern ground operations. I’ve covered the X10D extensively since Skydio first unveiled it, and the first deliveries under the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance Tranche 2 program earlier this year.
Key capabilities of the Skydio X10D include:
- A 48-megapixel telephoto camera
- Thermal imaging via a Teledyne FLIR Boson+ sensor
- Onboard AI that can maintain navigation without GPS — a critical feature in contested, electronically jammed environments.
- American made: Every unit is manufactured at Skydio’s facility in Hayward, California.
About the quick-turn order
Since February 28, U.S. and Israeli forces have been engaged in active military operations against Iran, and both sides have been using small drones.
On the offensive side, the U.S. debuted its LUCAS drone — a low-cost one-way attack system made by Phoenix-based SpektreWorks — in its opening strikes on Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury. The LUCAS, short for Low-cost Uncrewed (Unmanned) Combat Attack System, is a one-way kamikaze drone modeled closely on Iran’s own Shahed-136.
The Shahed-136 is a foam-and-plywood munition that has been extensively deployed by Russia (as Geran-2) and in Middle East conflicts. Iran has launched well over a thousand drone attacks across the region in the weeks since the conflict began, and U.S. and allied defenses — despite intercepting the vast majority — have not been able to stop them all. Every $30,000 Shahed that forces the U.S. or a partner to fire a $4 million PAC-3 missile is a massive win for Iran, because Iran has far more cheap drones than the U.S. and its partners have expensive interceptors.
The Skydio order is a different category of drone than the LUCAS. Most notably, the X10D is an ISR platform, not a strike weapon. But still, it’s a meaningful piece of equipment, as the Army needs capable, deployable, American-made small drones at scale, and it needs them faster than traditional procurement timelines allow. The 72-hour turnaround from bid to award is a direct signal that the DoD is trying to move at a different speed than it historically has.
The American-made angle
Skydio has spent years positioning itself as the American alternative to DJI — and the national security argument for American-made drones has only gotten sharper as the geopolitical environment has deteriorated. Every X10D comes out of Hayward, California, which is part of the broader San Francisco Bay Area.
Skydio is already on the Blue UAS Cleared List, which is the DoD’s vetted registry of NDAA-compliant drones. In fact, Skydio holds more entries on the Select List than any other manufacturer.
The $52 million figure sounds large, but remember, that’s roughly $20,800 per unit for 2,500 drones. But it does show how much cheaper drones are than other, larger aircraft. For context, a single F-35 costs north of $80 million.
I’ve been writing about drone warfare since the early days of Ukraine, and I’ve been covering Skydio’s evolution from consumer drone maker to defense contractor throughout. It’s clear that small drones have permanently changed how wars are fought, and the countries that figure out how to produce them at scale and speed — not just build the most sophisticated individual unit — are the ones with the advantage.
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