GLOBAL FORCE 2026 — The Army has officially launched its unmanned aerial systems marketplace aimed at allowing warfighters across the Defense Department, allied nations and other government agencies the ability to purchase drones as easily as placing an Amazon order.
The marketplace, launched Tuesday, has been in the works for several months and was developed by Amazon Web Services and the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, according to a press release from the service. For now, interested vendors can respond to a commercial solutions opening (CSO) which links them to the UAS marketplace where they can enter their product, and once it’s approved by the Army, they can start selling.
“What’s awesome about the UAS space is that we have really smart vendors. A lot of them, they’re hungry and they’re putting their own capital in,” Col. Danielle Medaglia, head of the Army’s project management office for UAS, told reporters here in Huntsville, Ala. Tuesday.
“Traditionally it takes a long time to fill a requirement, and we have this protracted competition, and maybe you only choose one or two. Now, it’s you tell us when you’re ready. We’re going to tell you what the soldiers want. We’re going to constantly have that feedback from the field, and then when you’re ready, we’re going to test what you have, and we’re going to provide [it] on the marketplace, truly that free market approach,” she continued.
Once the Army approves a product and soldiers or other users put it to use, they are able to rate the product on a scale of one to five stars, just like on Amazon. That feedback gets back to the vendor almost immediately, which will in turn inform industry on the demand signal for various types of drones, Medaglia said.
Based on the CSO posted earlier this month, the Army is in search of Group 1 to Group 3 drones broadly, but plans to be more prescriptive for capabilities as the marketplace matures, Lt. Col. Jeff Bess, the product manager for the marketplace, told reporters during a briefing Tuesday. Down the line, he said there will be other solicitations aimed at including more vendors to the marketplace.
Right now the marketplace only consists of Group 1 and 2 drones, but the Army is looking to add Group 3 drones by the summer, dependent on fiscal 2027 funding, Bess said. There are currently 30 systems on the marketplace which are all derived from programs under the project management office for UAS, but the Army soon plans to add drones from the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue List along with the winners of the various Gauntlet competitions which are part of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program.
The Army is also looking to add drones developed by soldiers themselves, such as those made in the 101st Airborne Division and the 25th Infantry Division, Bess added.
“So really, the sky is kind of the limit with all things UAS: components, Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, launched effects. There’s other things potentially in the future too that we could expand out too,” he said.
