US Central Command said on 28 February 2026 that its Task Force Scorpion Strike was using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury, the war with Iran. The drones were LUCAS, a low-cost US design modelled on Iran’s Shahed-136. Adm. Brad Cooper, Central Command’s commander, called them “indispensable” on 5 March.
The task force was set up in December 2025 to field cheap attack drones fast. LUCAS cost about $35,000 each, a Central Command spokesman, Capt. Tim Hawkins, said that month. DefenseScoop later put the family at $55,000 or less a unit.
There are not many of them. “They’re in the dozens,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said on 17 March. “We’re not in full-rate production. So, we shipped what we had.”
SpektreWorks of Phoenix builds LUCAS, DefenseScoop reported. It is based on the company’s FLM 136, a target drone that simulates a Shahed in training. SpektreWorks gives the FLM 136 six hours of endurance and a 40 lb payload; it has not said those figures apply to LUCAS. The drone was one of 18 US-made prototypes shown in the Pentagon courtyard in July 2025, Business Insider reported.
No LUCAS production contract has been announced, and no official count of drones built or used since March has been published.
The next step is software. In May Shield AI said it had been chosen to put its Hivemind autonomy software on LUCAS, with flight tests from July and a demonstration this autumn of one operator controlling many drones. “Mass without coordination is limited in value,” said Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s president.
