Marine Corps picks industry team to create a robot wingman of its own

The Marine Corps has selected Northrop Grumman and Kratos to develop its forthcoming Marine Corps Air-Ground Task Force Uncrewed Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR) Collaborative Combat Aircraft, an unmanned wingman that will fly alongside manned fighter jets.

Northrop will develop a mission kit and open-architecture software for Kratos’s existing VX-58 Valkyrie, according to a joint Thursday press release.

“With more than 20 successful flight demonstrations in operationally relevant environments, Northrop Grumman and Kratos are offering the U.S. Marine Corps a low risk, expedited path to MUX TACAIR mission capability and persistent joint crewed and uncrewed expeditionary operations,” the release said.

The initial award is for $231.5 million, Breaking Defense reported, over two years, through an other transaction agreement that bypasses the traditional procurement process and allows development to move more quickly.

The Air Force has been leading larger, higher-profile efforts to develop robot wingmen—formally, combat collaborative aircraft—but the Marine Corps requested $58 million in its most recent budget request to fund the development of its own CCA.

“We are committed to the development of a robust Combat Collaborative Aircraft capability and think this model of manned-unmanned teaming is just as relevant on the sea and under the sea,” Gen. Eric Smith, the service’s commandant, told the Senate Appropriations Committee in written testimony last summer. “We are exploring options that would provide our future MEUs with such capabilities.”

Smith mentioned that the Corps had tested out the Valkyrie through the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve as part of the Marine Corps’ Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer – Portfolio (PAACK-P) “experiment,” and that those lessons learned would inform the forthcoming MUC TACAIR program, aiming to pair the CCA with the F-35.