Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has announced that a missionised United States Marine Corps (USMC) Valkyrie Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) successfully demonstrated electronic warfare capabilities and a beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) command-and-control (C2) datalink in Southern California in April 2026.
For the operation, the missionised, runway-independent Valkyrie aircraft launched from a zero-length launcher and validated and characterised its BLOS system. The aircraft then transitioned from the Kratos ground control station to an Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA)-compliant human-machine interface developed by Autonodyne, allowing a USMC operator to control the vehicle over BLOS.
The Valkyrie operated alongside multiple USMC F-35 aircraft and an F/A-18 during the mission. It successfully met coordinated electronic warfare test objectives before autonomously returning to the recovery point at the conclusion of the mission.
The Expeditionary Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT) led the Integrated Test Team, with support from a USMC Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron, United States Naval Air Test and Evaluation Squadrons, Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Autonodyne.
Steve Fendley, President of Kratos Unmanned Systems Division, said, “The Valkyrie team continues to pave the way and demonstrate critical unmanned technologies that allow the U.S. Marine Corps and our military partners to effectively close kill chains in contested environments. This is the fourth new mission system configuration flown on USMC Valkyrie platforms in less than three years, each advancing deeper integration with the air vehicle, subsystems, and datalinks.”
“Combined with Valkyrie’s flexible, open systems architecture, vendor-agnostic autonomy, and leading payload and power capacity, we are enabling rapid deployment of new capabilities at unmatched speed. At the same time, Kratos is producing more Group 5 unmanned jet aircraft than any other provider, with over 150 systems expected this year and production scaling toward approximately 40 Valkyries annually to satisfy demand across our complete domestic and international customer base,” Fendley added.
“This is supported by significant internally funded investments across U.S. facilities to deliver affordable, high-performance systems at the pace and scale required by today’s warfighter,” he said.
In January 2026, Kratos and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems announced the award of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR) CCA contract.
Under the programme, Northrop Grumman and Kratos will develop and deliver Missionised Valkyrie Air Vehicle (MVAV) platforms featuring Northrop Grumman’s cost-effective mission kit and Open Architecture Autonomy Software. The companies said the approach provides a low-risk and expedited path to the MUX TACAIR mission.
The first prototype MUX TACAIR Valkyrie Air Vehicle is scheduled for completion in summer 2026.
