Army Opens Camp Atterbury and Muscatatuck to Commercial Drone Testing

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle announced at Fort Wayne's Northeast Indiana Defense Summit on Oct. 28 that Camp Atterbury, more than 34,000 acres with restricted airspace up to 40,000 feet, and the 1,000 acre Muscatatuck Training Center near Edinburgh are joining the Army's Permissive Test Range Expansion Initiative. Private companies can now request test windows through testrange.army.mil, with an ATEC concierge team coordinating schedules through the Indiana National Guard, though the Army has said capacity constraints mean a request is not a guarantee of access. Camp Atterbury already has a track record here. It's where the government tested the LUCAS one-way attack drone, a design built explicitly for multi manufacturer mass production. That history, combined with Defense Secretary Hegseth's new Autonomous Warfare Command targeted to stand up in October 2027, means Indiana shops that secure testing time at Atterbury now could land on an approved supplier list before most competitors even know the command exists.

Impact

LUCAS, the drone that proved Atterbury's value, is a government-owned design explicitly built for multi-manufacturer mass production, meaning Indiana's test-range access could steer where the Pentagon sources future LUCAS production subcontracts, directly benefiting Fort Wayne-area primes like BAE Systems, L3Harris and Raytheon that collectively employ more than 2,000 people there. The designation also feeds into Defense Secretary Hegseth's new Autonomous Warfare Command, targeted to stand up in October 2027, meaning companies testing at Atterbury now could land on its future approved-supplier list before competitors even know the command exists.

Watch

How companies request slots through testrange.army.mil given the Army's disclosed capacity constraints, which could favor firms with existing ATEC or National Guard relationships.

For the huddle

Could our precision machining or electronics assembly capacity plug into LUCAS-style drone subcontracting now that Camp Atterbury has a validated testing track record?

Pull your current certifications and capacity sheet and check them against what a drone or counter-drone manufacturer would need, then reach out to the ATEC concierge team through testrange.army.mil to find out who's already testing there.

Sources

Army announces drone test range initiative expansions to Indiana National Guard sites · 21alivenews.com

Earlier coverage

From the brief, October 29, 2026

Braun Touts $110 Million in Road Grants and Boundless Recreation's Bristol Launch
Indiana RV Manufacturing Jobs in Bristol Come From a Bet Against a Shrinking Market
Northern Indiana Anodize's $4 Million Fort Wayne Equipment Bet
Army Opens Camp Atterbury and Muscatatuck to Commercial Drone Testing
CenterPoint's $1.2 Billion Capex Plan Hides an Indiana Ratepayer Fight

The whole day’s brief →

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