AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) has been awarded a $117.3 million U.S. Army contract for its P550 electric vertical take-off and landing unmanned aircraft system, the Arlington-based defense technology firm announced on July 20, 2026. The order covers 82 P550 systems and represents the initial full-rate procurement of the platform in support of the Army's Long Range Reconnaissance program.
Full-Rate Production Through The UAS Marketplace
The award was issued under a Basic Ordering Agreement through a competitive Call for Solutions inside the Army's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Marketplace — a centralized digital platform designed to accelerate procurement of vetted drone technologies. It follows a wave of contracts AeroVironment has captured in 2026, including the $500 million layered counter-drone deal booked earlier in the month and the $80.5 million Titan task order for Air Force base defense in July.
What The P550 Brings To The Battalion
An autonomous Group 2 eVTOL UAS, the P550 delivers up to five hours of all-battery endurance and can carry a 15-pound multi-sensor payload — including enhanced lethality options — across ISR, precision strike, electronic warfare and communications relay missions. Its modular open systems approach lets operators hot-swap payloads and batteries in under five minutes with no tools, a capability the Army has emphasised as it pushes toward distributed, adaptable formations.
Aligning With The Army's Drone Dominance Initiative
"In today's battlespace, adaptability is no longer an advantage, it's a requirement," AeroVironment chairman and CEO Wahid Nawabi said in a statement. The order reinforces the company's role in supplying scalable, mission-ready platforms that align with the Army's drone dominance initiative and the broader Pentagon push to industrialise small-drone production — a shift also playing out through orders such as Red Cat's Black Widow contract and Kratos's NNSA counter-drone deal.
Reporting based on coverage from AeroVironment, Army Recognition and UAS Weekly.