X10D

The X10D is Skydio's Group 2-class tactical reconnaissance drone designed for platoon-level ISR in GPS-denied and electronically contested environments. In March 2026 the US Army placed an order worth $52 million for 2,500 units at approximately $20,800 each, the largest single-vendor tactical small-UAS order in Army history, moving from bid to award in under 72 hours . The X10D uses onboard navigation cameras to map terrain in real time, enabling autonomous flight without GPS. It carries high-resolution visual and thermal sensors for day/night operations, a multiband radio for connectivity under electronic warfare, and undergoes 550 acceptance checkpoints before delivery. Each unit is assembled and tested at Skydio's factory in Hayward, California, with a reported build time of approximately nine minutes.

Skydio was founded in 2014 and is the dominant US-made small-drone manufacturer following the FCC's ban on Chinese drones from US government networks. The X10D is the successor to the earlier X2 series and represents Skydio's shift into military Group 2 territory after establishing itself in public-safety and commercial markets. The $3.5 billion SkyForge co-location programme committed Skydio to expanding domestic production capacity precisely to support orders at this scale .

The X10D's unit price is significant across the industry because it sets a real Army-contract benchmark for what attritable-mass reconnaissance costs. At roughly one-tenth the price of previous comparable systems, the order validates the economic model that Skydio built its SkyForge manufacturing investment around: fixed-price, high-volume, domestically produced. The contract is expected to influence allied procurement by demonstrating what US-integrated interoperability costs in practice.