Aerovironment, Dragoon and two Ukrainian firms have been selected for Project Artemis, meant to rapidly develop, prototype and field scalable UAVs that can bring a low-cost mass in a high-end war.
The United States’ DIU (Defense Innovation Unit) has announced the award of contracts to four companies, two of them being Ukrainian, for prototyping modular, long-range, one-way attack drones that can be launched quickly and carry diverse swappable payloads, based on mission needs. Primarily, they should operate in EW (Electronic Warfare) and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems)-denied environments, says the agency.
While the U.S. firms have been identified as Dragoon and Aerovironment, the latter being the manufacturer of the Switchblade series of loitering munitions extensively used in Ukraine, the Ukrainian firms have not been named. These two have partnered with U.S. software companies Swan and Auterion, respectively, and all four vendors will have to demonstrate their products between April and May 2025, and then the DIU will make further selections.
Called Project Artemis, the program was initiated following a Congressional request and comes as other wings of the U.S. military are pursuing their own projects for scalable UAVs that can bring a low-cost mass in the battlespace of a high-end war. The only image released accompanying the DIU’s press statement appears to be an AI-generated visual of Reaper-like drones powered by three engines.
U.S.Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has awarded contracts to 4 companies for Project Artemis,a programme aimed at developing & evaluating long-range,one-way unmanned platforms.This initiative is being conducted in collaboration with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense A&S pic.twitter.com/Jlq00TYCr4
— Valhalla (@ELMObrokenWings) March 14, 2025
Fast acquisition and fielding program
The so-called kamikaze drones, officially defined as one-way attack UAVs, sought under Project Artemis must be affordable, ground-launched, and operate at ranges from 50-300 km, says the DIU. They should “launch quickly and expeditiously, navigate at low altitudes, carry a variety of payloads, [be] rapidly updatable and upgradable, and functional in disrupted, disconnected, intermittent and low-bandwidth and Global Navigation Satellite System denied environments.”
Project Artemis aims to quickly seek development, prototyping and fielding of such systems for the “services and Combatant Commands […] years in advance of current Program of Record timeframes.” DIU’s program manager Trent Emeneker said in the statement: “We are excited about the non-traditional companies who are providing low-cost, adaptable, long-range, UAS platforms with the potential to maximize operational flexibility for the Joint force.”
“This was the intent of Congress’ direction to rethink how to get capabilities to the warfighter at speed and scale that can deliver much faster than traditional Programs of Record,” further added Emeneker. DIU and the Defense Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment (A&S) identified the four companies following a “problem statement,” a solicitation process, the evaluation of 165 proposals and “flight demonstrations to verify stated capabilities of down-selected companies and entered into contract negotiations,” in just over four months.
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Simple, cheap, scalable weapons over technological niche
The project bares how both the Ukraine-Russia war and the Middle East conflict with the Houthis continue to impact military trends and defense-technological doctrines globally, with scalability and mass of low-cost weapons, trumps technical sophistry. “Congressional direction for this effort had a goal to provide loitering munitions capable of operation in an electromagnetic contested environment, at a price point that allows for mass deployment,” said the DIU statement.
As previously reported by The Aviationist, the need to have scalability has even pervaded large capital weapons like fighter aircraft. The U.S. Air Force has realized the need to have reasonably advanced jets that can be manufactured, maintained and upgraded over time instead of robust or overly advanced platforms, entailing higher supply chain and life-cycle costs.
The participation of the Ukrainian firms is also equally interesting, given the wealth of experience in designing and fielding asymmetric attack drones ranging from simple propeller driven bombers like the UJ-22, to large light sports aircraft like the Sky Ranger Nynja, hitting targets as deep behind enemy lines as Moscow, oil and natural gas facilities and strategic military installations like early warning radars.
Aerovironment secured in Jun. 2024 a nearly $1 billion contract for Switchblade 300s and 600s for the U.S. Army. DIU also has a separate project called the ETV (Enterprise Test Vehicle), which is similar to Artemis but focuses on designs that could evolve into low-cost cruise missiles.
Lessons from current wars
The DIU statement did not explicitly mention the wars in Ukraine or the Red Sea, but did say “Project Artemis goals are directly tied to observations of current real world combat conditions as well as feedback from end users across the DoD on what capabilities may be needed in this space to face near peer threat capabilities.”
For instance, the Ukrainian firms that developed the above-mentioned systems must have been under the constant overhead threat of Russian standoff strikes aimed at Kyiv’s defense factories, gaining valuable knowledge into efficient industrial processes and a low-footprint. The fact that Russia in Aug. 2024 decided to follow Ukraine’s footsteps to modify its own Soviet-era Yak-52 trainers to shoot down Ukraine’s pesky drones, proved the the cost and operational asymmetry imposed on its larger anti-air systems like the Tor and Pantsir.
AV Secures $743 Million Additional Contract Ceiling for Switchblade Loitering Munition Systems. Learn more: https://t.co/k2jCbCfH7n#Army #Switchblade #DefenseTech pic.twitter.com/gzHFWj0OyT
— AeroVironment (@aerovironment) October 14, 2024
Russia subsequently started to heavily employ EW to jam, spoof and disable the drones but, although these were reported to be successful, the commercially available drone technology still lent Ukraine the ability to relentlessly keep fielding such systems. It is a different matter that Russia also held the same ‘asymmetric’ advantage over Ukraine’s Western-supplied air defense systems like the Patriot, NASAMS and SAMP/T that often expended their missiles in the quest to shoot down volleys of Russian Geran-2 drones and Kh-101 missiles.
In the Red Sea, the Houthis’ mass drone, cruise missile, anti-ship ballistic missile strikes on coalition warships and Israel led to the advanced surface combatants to often spend their magazines, keeping overworked gunnery crews on hair-trigger alert. Most importantly, the Houthi projectiles showed that the line between one-way attack drones and long-range cruise missiles was increasingly getting blurred, where the trend has manifested into something like Project Artemis.
Also, in the Pacific theater, U.S. and Taiwanese military planners are trying to realize their aligning visions with inspiration from Ukraine for the sea drone war with China, with examples being Taipei’s radar-baiting Chein Hsiang kamikaze drones, USVs and the Pentagon’s Replicator program. The efforts have their own share of strategic, diplomatic and operational challenges, but nevertheless, can seriously threaten the PLA Navy and Air Force, if they come to fruition.
