Naomi Cooper
The U.S. Air Force has named the five companies selected to design and build a next-generation fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles designed to fly in coordination with crewed platforms, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported Thursday.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Anduril and General Atomics have been awarded contracts with undisclosed sums to continue rapid development for production for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
The initiatives intends to develop and deploy large numbers of autonomous aircraft to work alongside manned fighters to support a range of missions such as electronic warfare and air defenses suppression.
The Air Force did not provide further details on the contract awards but its budget request for fiscal year 2024 allocates up to $5.8 billion in the CCA program over the next five years.
