Huntsville will remain part of the engineering effort behind the U.S. Air Force’s Medusa counter-drone system as the service continues to evolve technology designed to detect and defeat small unmanned aircraft.
The Air Force awarded Leidos a contract with a ceiling of $9.93 million for continued engineering and integration of the Medusa Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft System of Systems. Work will be performed in Huntsville as well as Reston, Virginia; Newport, Rhode Island; and Concord, Massachusetts, through September 2027.
Medusa is more than a single piece of counter-drone hardware. The government-owned command-and-control system integrates sensors, electronic and kinetic effectors and algorithms to create counter-UAS capabilities that can be tailored for fixed-base, portable, mounted and handheld operations.
The system has been evolving for years as the military responds to the rapidly growing threat posed by small drones. Congressional research identifies Medusa as one of the command-and-control systems endorsed for military counter-UAS use, while earlier Air Force testing connected more than 20 counter-UAS sensor and defeat systems through the Medusa network.
That evolution has continued in 2026. Earlier this year, the Air Force sought industry capabilities that could be integrated into Medusa, including technology to detect low-flying threats and lower-cost methods of defeating them. The effort also sought industry feedback on a software development kit designed to make it easier to integrate new capabilities into Medusa’s command-and-control system.
Under the new Leidos award, the Air Force specifically calls for engineering support for the “continued evolution” of Medusa. The contract was awarded on a sole-source basis by the Force Protection Division of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hanscom Air Force Base.
The contract includes $993,754 in fiscal 2026 research, development, test and evaluation funding and about $4.06 million in operations and maintenance funding obligated at the time of the award.
The Huntsville connection also extends beyond the newly announced engineering work. Current contractor recruiting for Medusa sustainment describes Huntsville as the home station for field engineers who provide technical assistance, maintenance, system integration and training at Medusa sites around the world.
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