Army Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Program: Tranches and Vendors

The Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance program, known as SRR, is the service’s first program of record for a small rucksack-portable quadcopter, built to give every infantry platoon its own drone for looking over the next ridge, building, or tree line. It is fielded now in two forms: the Skydio RQ-28A that won the first competition in 2021, and a dual-vendor Tranche 2 built around the Teal Drones Black Widow and the Skydio X10D, which begins replacing the RQ-28A across the force in fiscal year 2026.

What the Program Is For

SRR exists because infantry platoons needed their own aerial reconnaissance rather than waiting on larger drone assets held higher up the chain. The requirement is straightforward: a soldier should be able to pull a quadcopter out of a rucksack, launch it by hand, and see what is on the other side of an obstacle without being exposed to fire.

The policy backdrop shaped the program as much as the tactical need. The Army banned Chinese-manufactured DJI drones in 2017 over cybersecurity concerns, and a 2021 executive order barred drones and subsystems from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.¹ That made building a domestic small-drone base a procurement priority. The Defense Innovation Unit ran the early integration work,² and the Army structured SRR as competitive tranches under a Middle Tier of Acquisition pathway with Other Transaction Agreements, which moves faster than traditional defense contracting.³

What the Drone Has To Do

The baseline requirements are a weight under five pounds, at least 30 minutes of flight time, and a range of three to five kilometers.⁴ The aircraft has to be rucksack-portable, hand-launched, and able to recover in tight spaces. It needs obstacle avoidance, autonomous waypoint navigation, target recognition, day and thermal sensors, and the ability to operate when GPS is jammed or denied.⁵

Just as important is what happens with the video feed. Systems must plug into the Army’s Uncrewed Vehicle Control system and the Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK), so a platoon leader sees the drone’s imagery next to the rest of the tactical picture.⁶ Tranche 2 aircraft are also the first to carry the Army’s Robotic and Autonomous Command and Control software, which unifies control across robotic systems.⁷

Tranche 1: The RQ-28A

The Army evaluated six prototypes in 2021 and selected Skydio’s X2D, which received the military designation RQ-28A and became the Army’s first program-of-record quadcopter. Skydio was awarded a five-year contract at $20.2 million per year.¹⁸⁹

Because no tactics or procedures existed for a platoon-level quadcopter, the Army stood up a Master Trainer Schoolhouse to develop doctrine as the aircraft was used.⁵ By August 2025, Tranche 1 systems had reached more than 16 brigades.⁸ The Army assessed the RQ-28A as having passed its minimum viable capability, but the plan was always to push closer to full threshold and objective performance in the next tranche.³

Tranche 2: A Dual-Vendor Outcome

The Tranche 2 competition began with 33 vendor proposals. The Army cut the field to ten for a demonstration at Fort Benning, then to three rapid-prototyping vendors: Teal Drones with the Golden Eagle MK2, Vantage Robotics with the Swift, and Skydio with the R47. Alpha prototype testing ran at Fort Benning in January 2023 and covered day and night flight, range, obstacle avoidance, and autonomy.³

On November 19, 2024, Red Cat Holdings announced that its subsidiary Teal Drones had been picked as the Tranche 2 program-of-record winner, with an acquisition objective of 5,880 systems over a five-year performance period.¹⁰ A “system” is two drones and a ground controller at an average price of roughly $45,000.¹¹ Army budget documents show unit cost rising from about $39,800 in Tranche 1 to $65,000, attributed to better obstacle avoidance, communications, and sensors.¹²

The Army kept Skydio as a second vendor. In October 2025, Skydio received a $7.9 million low-rate initial production contract for its X10D, bringing its total Tranche 2 support to $12.3 million for fiscal year 2025.¹³ The dual-vendor approach lets the Army keep pressure on price and performance and iterate between production cycles using soldier feedback.¹⁴

The Two Tranche 2 Aircraft

Teal Black Widow

The Black Widow is the primary Tranche 2 aircraft. According to Teal, it weighs 3.6 pounds, flies more than 35 minutes, and reaches five miles. It carries a Teledyne FLIR Hadron 640R+ payload with a 64-megapixel 4K electro-optical camera and thermal imager, AI-assisted target identification, tracking, and classification through FLIR Prism AI and optional Athena AI, visual navigation for GPS-denied flight, and a low-acoustic stealth mode. The three-pound WEB ground control station uses AES-256 encryption, runs 10 hours on a battery interchangeable with the aircraft’s, and connects to Nett Warrior through a radio backhaul.¹⁵

Skydio X10D

The X10D is the second Tranche 2 aircraft and the direct successor to the X2D/RQ-28A already in units. Skydio delivered initial X10D systems in May 2025 and received its low-rate initial production contract that October.¹³ Like the Black Widow, it integrates with the Army’s UVC and ATAK for platoon-level reconnaissance and target acquisition.⁶

Where Fielding Stands

Tranche 2 fielding began in April 2025, when the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division received Skydio X10D systems through an urgent request for a Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Fort Johnson, Louisiana. A soldier from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division was documented flying a Skydio drone at the Combined Resolve 25-2 exercise in Hohenfels, Germany, that May.¹⁶

These are Transformation in Contact units, brigades the Army uses to test new equipment against realistic training. The first iteration covered three brigades; the second added the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, with further expansion planned into Stryker, armored, and National Guard formations.¹⁷ Production of Tranche 2 was formally initiated in August 2025,⁸ and the new systems begin replacing the RQ-28A across the force in fiscal year 2026.³ Under a Secretary of Defense directive, the Army is required to field uncrewed systems in every division by the end of 2026.⁴

Funding and Sky Foundry

SRR is funded within the Army’s Family of Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (FoSUAS) line under Aircraft Procurement. The fiscal year 2027 request set $48.1 million specifically for SRR procurement,¹⁸ within a total FoSUAS request of $349.6 million. For fiscal year 2026, Congress provided $512.8 million for FoSUAS, well above the Army’s request.⁴

Congress also authorized the Sky Foundry initiative under P.L. 119-60, §914, which directs Army depots and arsenals to build small-drone components and systems in-house. The stated goal is 10,000 drones within a year of funding, with about $151 million included in the fiscal year 2027 budget. Sky Foundry is aimed in part at the concern that Army-procured small drones remain too expensive next to commercial systems and the low-cost drones used in Ukraine.¹⁹

Where SRR Sits in the Army’s Drone Stack

SRR is the platoon tier. Below it, at the squad level, the Soldier Borne Sensor program uses the Teledyne FLIR Black Hornet 4. Above it, at the company level, the Army is buying medium-range reconnaissance drones from vendors including Anduril Industries and Performance Drone Works. At the brigade level, the Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System is set to replace the RQ-7 Shadow, and at higher echelons the Army is developing long-range reconnaissance systems as a potential successor to the General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle.¹⁴

1
The War Zone. Army Buys Artificial Intelligence-Infused Folding Quadcopters for Battlefield Use
2
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3
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4
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13
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14
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15
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16
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17
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19
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