The Marine Corps has awarded Epirus an $11 million contract for its HAVOC high-power microwave system, according to an official Department of War contracts announcement dated August 12, 2026. The award, made through the Office of Naval Research and reported by Breaking Defense on August 10, arrived within days of a separate disclosure that the Pentagon's counter-drone task force is racing to harden dozens of domestic installations and strike a deal that would let new counter-UAS technology operate in national airspace.

Taken together, the two developments — one a specific procurement, the other a policy signal — sketch the outline of a counter-drone posture the Pentagon is trying to stand up on two fronts simultaneously: buying hardware for units in the field, and building the bureaucratic plumbing that would let that hardware, and others like it, defend fixed sites at home.

What HAVOC Actually Is

HAVOC — High-power Microwave Autonomous Vehicle Operational Capability — is a directed-energy weapon designed to disable drones by frying their electronics with bursts of microwave energy rather than shooting them down kinetically. According to Breaking Defense and DefenseScoop, the system mounts on a "universal sled" that can be fitted to manned or unmanned vehicles, and it is built to operate autonomously against swarms rather than requiring an operator to engage targets one at a time.

The Marine Corps' interest in the technology is not new. Epirus delivered an ExDECS (Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm) prototype to the Corps for testing in 2025, per DefenseScoop and Breaking Defense. HAVOC represents the next iteration — an "autonomy-enabled evolution" of ExDECS that Breaking Defense reports carries increased power output and enhanced coverage, though neither outlet cited a specific multiplier. The new system is intended to protect air-defense assets, refueling points, and radar installations — the kind of high-value, low-mobility targets that have become increasingly exposed to cheap drone attack in recent conflicts.

DefenseScoop reports HAVOC will integrate with the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS, the Corps' existing ground-based counter-drone architecture. That integration detail matters: rather than standing alone, HAVOC is being built to slot into a system the Marine Corps has already fielded, suggesting the Corps is treating high-power microwave as a layer to add to existing air-defense nodes rather than a standalone replacement for them.

Epirus CEO Andy Lowery characterized the award as reflecting "the Marine Corps' commitment to fielding integrated, software-defined systems optimized for the complex and rapidly evolving drone threat" — language that points to the company's broader pitch: that microwave weapons, unlike kinetic interceptors, can be updated in software as swarm tactics change, without needing a magazine reload.

A 46-Site Priority List Takes Shape

The HAVOC award landed in the same week that JIATF-401 — Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon's dedicated counter-drone task force — gave the clearest public accounting yet of its domestic defense buildout. Speaking at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama (August 11–13), executive director David Bagnati said the task force is currently working through the top 46 sites on a list of what he described as a "few hundred" priority U.S. installations, according to Aerospace America's August 12 report.

Bagnati also disclosed that the task force has been cleared to use high-energy lasers in national airspace and pointed to an upcoming memorandum of understanding between the Pentagon, the FAA, and the Department of Homeland Security — a tri-agency pact meant to fast-track new counter-UAS capabilities into airspace that is otherwise tightly regulated. Bagnati did not give a specific signing date. Directed-energy weapons and kinetic interceptors both raise obvious airspace-safety and interference questions when operated near civilian air traffic, and an FAA/DHS sign-off has been treated as one of the key regulatory bottlenecks slowing counter-drone deployment on U.S. soil.

JIATF-401 itself is a relatively small interagency body — 15 representatives, according to Aerospace America — led by Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross and reporting up to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg. Its mandate spans identifying which domestic installations are most exposed to drone incursions and coordinating the technology, authorities, and interagency agreements needed to defend them.

Why It Matters

Neither the HAVOC contract nor the JIATF-401 briefing is, by itself, a dramatic escalation — $11 million is a modest sum by Pentagon standards, and a 46-site priority list without named locations or a completed FAA/DHS agreement is still more roadmap than reality. But the two stories together show a program moving on parallel tracks that eventually have to converge: the military is buying and testing directed-energy and autonomous counter-drone hardware for expeditionary use (HAVOC on vehicles, protecting radars and refueling points in the field), while a separate task force is simultaneously trying to clear the legal and regulatory path to deploy similar technology — including lasers — to defend fixed installations inside the United States.

The fact that JIATF-401 needs a dedicated MOU with the FAA and DHS just to operate counter-drone systems in domestic airspace underscores how much of the counter-UAS problem is regulatory rather than technical. The Marine Corps can buy a system like HAVOC and move it toward fielding; whether comparable capability can legally be pointed at a drone over a U.S. Air Force base or a critical-infrastructure site depends on interagency paperwork that, as of mid-August 2026, was still not signed. For a threat environment where cheap, mass-produced drones have repeatedly outpaced the fielding timelines of traditional air defense, the gap between "the hardware exists" and "the hardware is authorized to operate here" is the story worth watching.

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