Kratos has disclosed that a missionised US Marine Corps Valkyrie Collaborative Combat Aircraft flew an electronic warfare mission alongside multiple F-35s and an F/A-18 at a U.S. Navy test range in Southern California. During the April flight, a Marine operator took command of the uncrewed aircraft beyond line of sight through a human-machine interface from Autonodyne after launch from a zero-length launcher, and the drone later returned autonomously to its recovery point.
The test team validated and characterised the command-and-control datalink during the sortie, a key element of the Valkyrie’s collaborative combat role. Kratos described the aircraft as a USMC Valkyrie fitted with a new mission-system configuration, the fourth such setup flown on USMC Valkyrie platforms in less than three years.
The integrated effort was led by the Expeditionary Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team and included USMC operational test and evaluation personnel, U.S. Naval Air Test and Evaluation squadrons, Northrop Grumman, Autonodyne and Kratos. The specific range, payload and Valkyrie variant were not identified, and the USMC and Naval Air Systems Command had not publicly confirmed the trial when the disclosure was issued.