USMC Valkyrie Demonstrates BLOS Command and Control in Flight

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Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc., a Technology Company in the Defense, National Security and Global Markets and an industry-leading provider of high-performance, jet-powered unmanned aerial systems, announced that a missionized United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) Valkyrie Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) successfully demonstrated Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities and beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) command and control (C2) datalink in southern California in April 2026.

For the operation, the missionized, runway-independent Valkyrie aircraft launched from a zero-length launcher, validated and characterized the BLOS system and then transitioned seamlessly from the Kratos ground control station to an Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA)-compliant human machine interface (HMI), developed by Autonodyne, LLC, which allowed a USMC operator to control the vehicle over BLOS. Flying with multiple USMC F-35’s and an F/A-18, the Valkyrie successfully met coordinated EW test objectives before returning autonomously to the recovery point at the end of the mission.

The Expeditionary Maritime Aviation-Advanced Development Team (XMA-ADT) led the Integrated Test Team with support provided by a USMC Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron, United States Naval Air Test and Evaluation Squadrons, Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Autonodyne, LLC.

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. 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.”

In January 2026, Kratos and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems announced award of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR) CCA contract. Northrop Grumman and Kratos will rapidly develop and deliver Missionized Valkyrie Air Vehicle (MVAV) platforms featuring Northrop Grumman’s cost-effective mission kit and Open Architecture Autonomy Software, providing a low risk, expedited path to the MUX TACAIR mission. The first prototype MUX TACAIR Valkyrie Air Vehicle is on track to be completed in summer 2026.