Pentagon Bets Big on Iranian Drone Tech: LUCAS Goes Mass Production

The Pentagon is betting big on copied Iranian drone technology.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. is moving to mass produce its own version of Iran's Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, a design reverse-engineered from aircraft recovered from the battlefield in Ukraine. The program, called LUCAS (Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System), originally launched as a training asset but is now being prepped for combat use.

"After only a few years, we continue to refine that and make that something that we can mass produce at scale," Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, told the Journal.

The appeal is simple: cost. Each LUCAS unit costs approximately $35,000 to produce, a fraction of the $16 million price tag for an MQ-9 Reaper. The U.S. has lost more than a dozen Reapers to Iranian attacks since the start of the current conflict, according to ABC News.

Iran has been supplying Russia with Shahed-136 drones for use in the war on Ukraine since 2022. Now, Russia is returning the favor. The Journal reports that Russia is sharing both drone technology and satellite imagery with Iran, adapting the Shaheds to "navigate and target more precisely as well as withstand electronic warfare jamming."

The cost disparity extends beyond the drones themselves. When Houthi forces in Yemen were launching drones at ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. was firing $2 million missiles to intercept drones that cost as little as $2,000. Lasers have emerged as a potentially cheaper countermeasure, with per-shot costs reportedly dropping below $5, though weather and desert conditions limit their effectiveness.

The Shahed gained notoriety earlier this month when the design was credited with causing the first U.S. casualties in the Iran conflict, killing six American service members in Kuwait on March 1.