Project ULTRA: The Military’s Bold Push to Share the Skies With Drones

How the Pentagon Plans to Revolutionize Civilian Airspace by 2025

In a high-stakes experiment that could redefine the future of flight, Project ULTRA is preparing to unleash military drones into civilian airspace. The initiative—slated for Summer 2025—will see unmanned systems flying 60-mile routes between North Dakota’s Grand Forks Air Force Base and Cavalier Space Force Station, carrying payloads up to 55 pounds. This isn’t just a logistics test; it’s a radical stress test for the FAA’s air traffic control systems.

“This is about proving drones can coexist with passenger jets and crop dusters without turning the sky into the Wild West,” says a DoD official involved in the program.

The collaboration reads like a who’s-who of aerospace heavyweights: the Department of Defense, NASA, the FAA, and private partners like GrandSKY—a 217-acre drone innovation hub that’s been refining sensor systems since 2018. Their mission? To crack three critical challenges: enhancing real-time airspace awareness, developing fail-safe military supply routes, and hardening defenses against rogue drones.

Simulations, Sensors, and Supply Drops

At the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, engineers recently completed contingency simulations for what could go wrong—midair collisions, lost signals, sudden storms. The results informed plans for 10 round-trip demonstration flights, each delivering critical supplies through FAA-regulated Class Delta airspace. These corridors are typically reserved for manned aircraft near airports, making compliance with civil aviation rules non-negotiable.

“Every flight is a data point for rewriting the rulebook,” notes a GrandSKY technician. “We’re not just testing drones—we’re testing trust.”

If successful, Project ULTRA could unlock a new era of military-civilian airspace integration, where cargo drones resupply frontline units or ferry medical supplies during disasters—all while avoiding passenger flights. But the clock is ticking: with adversaries advancing their own drone tech, the Pentagon views 2025 as a hard deadline to prove the concept works. The skies, it seems, are about to get a lot more crowded.