Anduril wins $640 million contract for counter-drone base protection systems

Anduril Industries has received a $642 million contract to produce a new counter-drone system for the Marine Corps, capping off a competition to fulfill what service officials have described as an "urgent need" to better defend buildings, bases and other installations.

Under the award, Anduril will deliver, install and sustain the Installations-Counter small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (I-CsUAS) at domestic and international locations, according to a March 7 Pentagon announcement. Anduril beat out proposals from nine other vendors, the notice states.

As unmanned aircraft become increasingly cheap and prevalent, defending fixed sites has become a critical need, officials said last year. Group 1-3 commercial, off-the-shelf UAS -- smaller systems with a maximum weight of 1,320 pounds -- are of special concern.

Presently, the Marine Corps is using leased counter-drone systems to meet this defensive need ahead of the I-CsUAS program of record. Leased systems had been fielded to five locations as of June 2023, with the addition of a sixth site expected in fiscal year 2025.

Following the award to Anduril, a single I-CsUAS system will be procured for operational assessments, according to FY-25 budget documents.

The actual I-CsUAS fielding timeline seems to be lagging the schedule laid out in the budget books, which predicted the contract would be awarded before the end of FY-24, the operational assessment would occur in the second quarter of FY-25 and initial operational capability would be declared in the third quarter of FY-25.

The service’s latest budget request contains $53 million in procurement and $11 million in research and development funding for the program, though Congress has yet to pass a spending package and is now considering extending stopgap funding patches to span the full fiscal year.