It’s been a busy week for Redwire.
On Tuesday, the space and defense giant announced a “multi-year contract valued at high eight-figures” with an undisclosed NATO country for its Penguin Mk3 VTOL UAS, and followed that up yesterday with a $15M contract with the US Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence (AVCOE) for its ISR-focused Stalker drone.
Down to the wire: Redwire, which started out in the space biz when it was founded in 2020, expanded into the drone game through their $925M acquisition of Edge Autonomy last year. Looks like that’s paying off.
So far, Redwire’s drone offerings are pretty focused on ISR, and their Penguin and Stalker UAS have proven pretty popular.
Club Penguin: The Penguin, the one the unnamed NATO ally is getting their hands on in the “high eight-figure” deal, is the larger of the two.
- With a 16.4-foot wingspan and 108-pound takeoff weight, the Penguin Mk3 looks a lot like an old-fashioned prop plane and slots into the Group 3 category of larger drones.
- It brings 14 hours of endurance and EO/IR payloads for day-and-night Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) operations.
- It’s also been pretty combat-tested—Redwire’s delivered more than 250 of them to the Ukrainian military, including through several US military aid packages.
The contract is described as part of a “multi-year modernization program” for the country’s tactical UAS capabilities.
“This program reflects Redwire’s heritage of bringing a forward-looking approach to tactical UAS modernization for NATO allies,” Redwire’s defense tech boss Steve Adlich said in a statement. “Penguin Mk3 builds on years of operational, combat experience to deliver a scalable, adaptable solution aligned with the demands of modern defense environments.”
Training day: Redwire’s deal with the Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence focuses on the Stalker drone, which the 1st Aviation Brigade will use for “advanced individual training.”
- The Stalker Block 30, with about half the takeoff weight of the Penguin, is in the Group 2 category, but has a solid eight hours of endurance and a 15,000-foot flight ceiling.
- Redwire also has a larger version, the Block 40, with about double the endurance and payload capacity of the Block 30.
- Redwire indicated that the deal with the Army covers several Stalker variants. The drones have clearly been a hit with the 1st Aviation Brigade, which has inked three orders totaling roughly $25M with Redwire for the Stalker in the past eight months.
- They’ve also delivered hundreds of Stalkers to the Marine Corps, including through a $20M contract last month.
“Redwire understands the criticality of ‘train the trainer’ through effective individualized instruction and the role it plays in supporting the evolving mission needs of the modern battlefield,” Adlich said. “We want to make sure our customers are equipped to meet any mission challenge they might face through system flexibility and comprehensive, hands-on training focused on real-world mission scenarios.”
Well, good news for Redwire, there are plenty of real-world scenarios the Pentagon’s looking to test all their fancy new drone tech in.