US Army purchases 82 AeroVironment P550 drones to expand long-range reconnaissance capacity.

The U.S. Army has awarded AeroVironment a $117.3 million contract to procure 82 P550 long-range reconnaissance drones, a move announced on June 3, 2026, that significantly expands battalion-level intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition capabilities. By placing persistent airborne reconnaissance directly under battalion control, the purchase reduces reliance on higher-echelon aviation assets and reflects the Army’s push to increase drone density across combat formations in response to lessons from modern warfare.

The P550 combines up to five hours of endurance with long-range communications, vertical takeoff and landing, modular payloads, and onboard artificial intelligence for target recognition and operation in GPS-denied environments. Its ability to switch rapidly between reconnaissance, communications relay, electronic warfare, and strike missions makes it a flexible battlefield asset that supports the Army’s broader modernization effort toward distributed, adaptable, and drone-centric operations.

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The contract, which received ten bids, is intended to equip U.S. battalion commanders and their units with long-range reconnaissance assets under direct tactical control, reducing dependence on higher-echelon aviation resources. (Picture source: AeroVironment)

On June 3, 2026, the U.S. Army awarded AeroVironment a $117,306,232 contract for the procurement of 82 P550 unmanned aircraft systems under the Long-Range Reconnaissance (LRR) program, providing battalion commanders with an organic reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) capability that until recently largely resided at brigade level or above. The $117M contract follows the initial delivery of P550 drones to U.S. Army units in August 2025 and a December 2025 agreement that funded testing, integration, software updates, documentation, and incorporation of the drone into the Army's wider unmanned systems architecture.

The June 2026 contract is notable because it constitutes the first major production purchase of the P550 since the drone was unveiled in October 2024. It also represents one of the first large procurements linked to the U.S. Army's effort to increase tactical drone density across combat formations following operational observations from Ukraine and the July 2025 "Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance" initiative. Contract completion is scheduled for July 23, 2026, indicating an accelerated delivery timeline of less than two months between award and planned completion. 

With a notional value of $1.43 million per system (when dividing the contract value by the quantity of drones), the P550 entered the Long-Range Reconnaissance competition as part of a broader Army effort to increase reconnaissance capacity at the battalion level while reducing dependence on brigade aviation assets. The requirement emerged from lessons generated through Transformation in Contact initiatives, where units repeatedly identified the need for longer-range reconnaissance assets capable of remaining under battalion control. In August 2025, the U.S. Army selected two unmanned systems for the initial LRR capability: AeroVironment's P550 and Edge Autonomy's Stalker Block 35X.

Rather than choosing a single winner, U.S. Army acquisition officials opted to field systems from multiple manufacturers simultaneously. This approach allows operational units to evaluate different assets under identical conditions while preserving industrial competition. It also avoids locking the program into a single design before operational experience has clarified the balance between endurance, payload, survivability, logistics burden, and cost. Army planning documents associated with the program have indicated that additional Long-Range Reconnaissance candidates may be selected in the future as new systems mature.

The P550 occupies the upper end of the Pentagon's Group 2 unmanned aircraft category, as its maximum take-off weight of 24.9 kg (55 lb) places it just below the 25 kg threshold that separates Group 2 and Group 3 drones. It measures approximately 2.8 meters in length with a wingspan of roughly 5.2 meters, yet breaks down into a transport package measuring 1.8 m × 0.6 m × 0.6 m. This allows a complete P550 to be transported in tactical vehicles already assigned to U.S. maneuver formations, including HMMWVs and JLTVs, without requiring dedicated aviation transport assets, as AeroVironment designed the drone around such rapid deployment requirements. Soldiers can reportedly unpack, assemble, and launch the P550 drone in less than ten minutes through a tool-free assembly process.

Vertical take-off and landing capability eliminates the need for catapults, runways, or recovery systems, allowing operation from confined locations near frontline units. The drone is controlled through the Vigilant Spirit ground control architecture and is configured for single-operator employment, reducing personnel requirements compared with larger tactical unmanned aircraft. The Army's interest in the P550 is closely linked to its endurance-payload combination. The reconnaissance drone can remain airborne for up to five hours using battery power alone while carrying payloads weighing up to 6.8 kg, or 15 lb.

Within the Group 2 category, endurance and payload often compete against one another. Increasing endurance generally requires additional battery capacity, while increasing payload reduces available endurance, but the P550 combines both characteristics in a single airframe. Operationally, this allows a battalion to maintain surveillance coverage over a target area for several hours while carrying multiple sensors, communications equipment, electronic warfare payloads, or munitions. The P550 flies at speeds ranging from 15 to 27 meters per second, equivalent to approximately 30 to 52 knots. Communications range reaches 40 km under standard configurations and extends to 60 km when equipped with digital datalink architectures.

Maximum flight altitude reaches approximately 14,000 ft, while launch operations can be conducted from elevations approaching 10,000 ft. These performance parameters place the P550 between small quadcopters used by platoons and larger brigade-level unmanned aircraft, filling a capability gap that has existed within Army formations for years. Rather than dedicating individual airframes to specific mission sets, the P550 uses a front payload module that can be removed and replaced in less than five minutes without tools. This enables the same drone to transition from reconnaissance duties to communications relay, electronic warfare, targeting, or strike missions between sorties.

The airframe was designed according to a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), allowing integration of third-party sensors, radios, datalinks, mission software, and ground control systems. This architecture reduces dependence on proprietary components and simplifies future modernization efforts. AeroVironment has already demonstrated several payload configurations, including baseline intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) packages, combined ISR and communications relay payloads, ISR and electronic warfare payloads, and strike configurations employing precision-guided munitions. One demonstrated integration involved the Shryke precision-guided munition developed by L3Harris and Corvid Technologies.

The company has also integrated electronic warfare systems such as CACI's Pit Viper module, which means that the P550 is capable of supporting multiple battalion-level missions. The P550 incorporates AeroVironment's Avacore onboard computing architecture together with SPOTR-Edge automatic target recognition software. These systems allow the drone to identify and classify personnel, ground vehicles, aircraft, and maritime targets autonomously while airborne, reducing the volume of data that must be manually reviewed by operators. During surveillance missions, human operators can spend hours examining video feeds to identify relevant activity, while automatic target recognition shifts part of that workload to onboard algorithms that continuously scan sensor feeds and highlight objects of interest.

The drone's Visual Navigation System further expands operational flexibility by combining electro-optical sensors, infrared sensors, lidar, and dedicated processing modules. This architecture enables navigation in environments where GPS signals are jammed, spoofed, or unavailable. Rather than relying entirely on remote ground stations for analysis, the P550 processes information onboard through edge-computing functions, reducing latency and accelerating tactical decision-making at lower echelons. Moreover, the U.S. Army Long-Range Reconnaissance (LRR) concept is intended to provide battalion commanders with reconnaissance assets directly under their control rather than relying on requests routed through higher headquarters.

Operationally, the drone supports route reconnaissance, target acquisition, surveillance, force protection, communications relay, and support to indirect fires. U.S. Army planners view the LRR capability as a bridge between platoon-level drones that typically operate at short range and brigade aviation assets that are often limited in availability. The service has deliberately structured the program to remain Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) agnostic. Rather than creating a highly specialized operator community, the U.S. Army intends for soldiers from multiple occupational backgrounds to operate the drones after training, supporting both wider distribution across formations and faster fielding.

As multiple drones can be operated simultaneously to maintain persistent surveillance over designated sectors, this ensures a continuous coverage even as individual drones rotate through battery replacement and maintenance cycles. The LRR concept also allows battalions to expand reconnaissance coverage without committing scarce helicopter or fixed-wing aviation resources. The June 2026 award to AeroVironment must also be viewed within the context of broader Army and Department of Defense drone policy.

The Long-Range Reconnaissance program directly supports the July 2025 "Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance" initiative, which called for accelerated acquisition of low-cost unmanned systems, expanded domestic production capacity and wider distribution of drones throughout combat formations. Operational experience from Ukraine has played a significant role in shaping these priorities. Army planners have increasingly emphasized the need for large numbers of affordable reconnaissance systems capable of rapid replacement, continuous upgrades and distributed employment.

AeroVironment has publicly indicated plans to expand production capacity into the thousands of units annually, suggesting anticipation of substantially larger future demand than the current 82-unit order. The Army's insistence on open architectures, interchangeable payloads and competition between multiple manufacturers indicates that the Long-Range Reconnaissance effort is intended to remain adaptable rather than tied to a fixed configuration. The P550 and Stalker Block 35X constitute the first generation of this capability, but the program's structure leaves open the possibility of additional drones entering service as operational requirements evolve and new designs reach maturity.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.