I may be jumping the gun calling them a "fighter jet company" but as far as autonomous machines go the headline is right on.
Here's the news that was garnering attention last week followed by a very interesting (for a certain group of homeowners) video. First up, from BreakingDefense, the much smaller Anduril beats out serious competitors for some Air Force loot, April 24:
Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics for next round of CCA work
The two vendors emerged successful from an original pool of five and are expected to carry their drone designs through a prototyping phase that will build and test aircraft.
Defense startup Anduril and drone maker General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) have been picked by the Air Force to build and test drone prototypes for the next phase of the service’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the Air Force announced tonight.
The Air Force’s decision winnows down a pool of five competitors to two. As a result, three other vendors — Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — have been eliminated from the running.
“The companies not selected to build these production representative CCA vehicles, and execute the flight test program, will continue to be part of the broader industry partner vendor pool consisting of more than 20 companies to compete for future efforts, including future production contracts,” the Air Force said.
As Breaking Defense first reported, the five contractors were previously picked by the Air Force for the program’s first phase, which largely focused on design work. Today’s selection narrows down the vendors who will take their designs from the drawing board to the real world. As Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter recently told lawmakers in a congressional hearing, the upcoming CCA stage will see those vendors “complete detailed designs, build prototypes and test production-representative test articles.”
Unveiled by the service as a major multibillion dollar program in the fiscal year 2024 budget, the CCA effort aims to initially field as many as 1,000 drones. According to the service’s press release today, officials plan to make a “competitive production decision” by FY26 for the first round of CCA work and “field a fully operational capability before the end of the decade.”....
....MUCH MORE
Also at Breaking Defense, autonomy in another domain, April 16:
Anduril’s Aussie drone sub ‘one year early and on budget,’ heads to production
Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said Anduril's Ghost Shark is part of the Australian military's $5.2 billion to $7.2 billion investment in undersea uncrewed maritime systems.
And a primer on drone countermeasures from Mark (50 million subscribers) Rober's YouTube channel (the home adaptations are in the second half of the vid):
A couple recent posts that highlight the problem of drones:
- "On Ukraine’s ‘Transparent Battlefield,’ There Are Few Places Left to Hide"
- "Ukraine Is the First 'Hackers’ War'”
The second article, from IEEE Spectrum focuses like a laser on drone-counter-drone.
