14JUN

Drone Dominance Gauntlet opens 8 June

1 min read

11:42UTC

The Pentagon's Drone Dominance Phase 2 Gauntlet Stage 1 runs from Monday 8 June to Saturday 20 June at Camp Grayling, Michigan, pitting startups, FPV racers and two Ukrainian firms against a programme a heritage prime now shapes.

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ConflictDeveloping

The Pentagon Drone Dominance Phase 2 Gauntlet Stage 1 opened on Monday 8 June at Camp Grayling, Michigan, running until Saturday 20 June⁠¹. The field includes FPV (first-person-view) racing veterans, two Ukrainian entrants, and the Phase 1 standouts Skycutter, which scored 99.3 out of 100, and Neros on 87.5. Phase 1 had made the programme look startup-only.

That picture changed when Northrop Grumman was selected to arm 200,000 FPV attack drones with a common payload by 2027. The Gauntlet now runs inside an architecture a heritage prime helps define, even as hobbyists and small firms supply the airframes. Britain faces the same question in parallel, with BAE Systems, Tekever and Thales drawn into the Project NYX concept-demonstrator phase.

Early preferment compounds. The same dynamic put Anduril's Lattice at the centre of US counter-drone command and control; whoever holds the interface shapes everything built to it. Whether Phase 2 lets a startup, or a Ukrainian entrant, place against that backdrop is the open test Stage 1 begins to settle when it closes on 20 June.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Pentagon is spending $1.1 billion to buy more than 300,000 attack drones by 2027. These are small aircraft that fly to a target and destroy themselves on impact, similar to what Ukraine and Russia have been using in the war. The Pentagon called its procurement programme Drone Dominance and is running a competitive fly-off to select suppliers. Phase 1 selected 11 vendors. Phase 2 is now underway, with Stage 1 running 8-20 June at Camp Grayling, a military training base in Michigan. Competitors include Phase 1 winner Skycutter, Phase 1 runner-up Neros, two Ukrainian firms, and FPV drone-racing specialists who have adapted their sport skills for military use. Northrop Grumman, a major traditional defence company, was separately chosen to design a standard warhead and fuze module that all the competing drones will need to carry.

Source Landscape

Northrop Grumman's payload-standard role at roughly $5,000 per drone across the 200,000-unit initial tranche creates a minimum revenue floor of $1B for Northrop regardless of which vendors win the Phase 2 platform competition. This separates the heritage-prime revenue stream from the startup competition entirely: Northrop earns on volume, startups earn on selection.

The Camp Grayling venue signals the test conditions: Michigan National Guard facilities provide GPS-jamming, communications-denial, and electronic-warfare red-team environments that replicate contested Eastern European battlespace. Competitors that qualified in Phase 1 with fibre-optic control, including Skycutter, have an advantage in jammed environments that Phase 2 is designed to validate at scale.

Sources:DroneXL

Mentions:Northrop Grumman →Project NYX →Michigan →Lattice →Tekever →Ukraine →Russia →Thales →BAE Systems →Anduril →Pentagon →Camp Grayling →Drone Dominance →Neros →Skycutter →

First Reported In

Update #11 · Ukraine starts exporting the factory

DroneXL· 7 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Northrop banks two drone awards in one week

Northrop Grumman's payload selection is the structural context for Phase 2 Gauntlet Stage 1 opening.

Occurred 18 May 2026

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UK launches Apache drone wingman trial

Project NYX's four-company concept-demonstrator phase is the UK parallel to the US Phase 2 Gauntlet opening — both represent the heritage-prime vs startup question crystallising simultaneously.

Occurred 15 May 2026

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This Event

Drone Dominance Gauntlet opens 8 June

Phase 2 begins answering whether traditional primes crowd out the startups that defined the programme or simply absorb them.

Led to

Pentagon's drone buy lands a third short

Phase 2 Gauntlet Stage 1 opening at Camp Grayling (event 3993) is the direct follow-on to the Phase 1 shortfall, introducing the compressed price caps and Chinese-component deadline.

Occurred 7 Jun 2026

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Drone Gauntlet now judges the parts

Gauntlet Stage 1 opening on 8 June was the event whose close on 20 June is extracted here; the new beat is the results (49 companies/79 drones) and the Gauntlet II component bar.

Occurred 20 Jun 2026

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Pentagon orders 120 drones in five weeks

Stage 1 opened at Camp Grayling in early June, testing the 49 companies later cut to 19.

Occurred 1 Jul 2026

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Gauntlet II sets five-week build sprint

Gauntlet II's Fort Carson sprint is the next stage of the programme that opened at Camp Grayling on 8 June.

Occurred 3 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

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United Kingdom (CPS and Counter Terrorism Policing)

The CPS charged two men under the National Security Act 2023 over the RAF Fairford incident, and Counter Terrorism Policing said it believes the foreign intelligence service involved is Iran's, LBC reported. The case now runs through the courts; both men are charged, not convicted.

Aden and Yemen's recognised government

The Houthis told people to leave Aden airport, in the government-held south, before a missile fell there on 28 October, AFP reported, and police reported a second attack that afternoon. The fight between Riyadh and the Houthis is landing on the south's main civilian airport.

Qatar (mediators)

Qatar-led mediators put new terms to Iran this week, which an Iranian official called "ideas, not a proposal". Riyadh framed the Tehran meeting as support for Qatari and Pakistani mediation, keeping Doha at the centre of the indirect channel.

Korea Shipowners' Association

The association said the ships Iran listed were sub-chartered to an overseas oil company, not owned by Sinokor, carried no South Korean crew, and that Sinokor was unaware of the warning. South Korea's shipowners are contesting whose vessels the notice covers before it takes effect.

Kuwait (foreign ministry)

Kuwait summoned Iran's ambassador, Mohammad Toutounji, and handed him a protest note over the embassy's denial that its citizen took part in the alleged plot against Interior Minister Fahad Al-Yousef. Kuwait is answering through its courts and a diplomatic protest, citing international law and the UN Charter.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.