The U.S. Air Force has designated Northrop Grumman’s semi-autonomous prototype aircraft, Project Talon, as YFQ-48A as part of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, DVIDS reported.
According to the report, the Mission Design Series, or MDS, designation reflects the service branch’s commitment to rapidly deliver new capabilities to warfighters.
“We are encouraged by Northrop Grumman’s continued investment in developing advanced semi-autonomous capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Jason Voorheis, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft. “Their approach aligns with our strategy to foster competition, drive industry innovation and deliver cutting-edge technology at speed and scale.”
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What Is Project Talon?
Project Talon is an autonomous aircraft designed to fly alongside manned fighter jets. The recently-launched initiative is the latest addition to Northrop’s portfolio of autonomous systems and seeks to advance collaboration between manned and uncrewed aircraft.
Launched in early December, the project builds on Northrop’s seven decades of experience in autonomy and is supported by the company’s autonomous testbed ecosystem, called Beacon.
What Is Air Force CCA?
CCA is a component of the Next Generation Air Dominance Family of Systems and seeks to integrate open-systems architectures to facilitate the continuous iteration of autonomy and mission systems capabilities. The program aims to deliver affordable, advanced semi-autonomous aircraft to complement and augment the Air Force’s fleet of manned fighter jets to improve combat effectiveness and operational flexibility in contested environments.
The program implements a multifaceted learning campaign that includes vendor-led developmental testing, independent assessments at Edwards Air Force Base in California and operational evaluation by the Experimental Operations Unit at Nellis AFB in Nevada.
In August, an aircraft prototype developed by General Atomics for the Air Force’s CCA program performed its inaugural flight at a test location in California. The YFQ-42A test flight generated data to support continued assessments of the platform’s flight autonomy, mission system integration and airworthiness.
In 2024, General Atomics and Anduril were selected to build production-representative prototypes under the CCA program.
In March, the Air Force officially designated CCA prototypes from General Atomics and Anduril as YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively.
The service expects to make an Increment 1 production decision in fiscal year 2026.
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