Army opens test ranges to private industry

The Army is opening military test ranges to private industry , the service announced this month, including a Michigan site where companies can test drones and counter-drone systems against electronic warfare conditions modeled after those in Ukraine. Companies will be able to request range access even if they do not have an ongoing partnership with the government, according to the release . The effort, the Army says, is designed to hasten the development and testing of drones, counter-drone systems, long-range fires and cheap interceptors. The service said it is launching four ranges in the U.S. and one internationally. The ranges include Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, West Cibola Range in Arizona, Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi, Camp Grayling in Michigan and Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center in Morocco. “ A company with a good idea shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and a program of record just to prove their equipment works,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said in the release. “So we fixed that. One front door — testrange.army.mil — a real person to walk you in, and on the other side, everything the modern battlefield demands: contested airspace, degraded signals and the space to test at real scale.” The move comes as the Pentagon implements sweeping changes to speed up drone and counter-drone acquisition. The Defense Department created the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, a unit charged with streamlining counter-drone efforts, whic…