Mach Industries Atlas

Mach Industries' Atlas is a hybrid-electric, runway-independent strike drone being developed under DIU's RIMES program to carry 1,000-pound munitions 1,400 nautical miles from destroyer decks and austere sites — and come back to rearm.

Overview

Atlas is an uncrewed long-range strike aircraft in early prototype development by Mach Industries, a venture-backed US defense manufacturer, with propulsion partner Whisper Aero. In June 2026 the Defense Innovation Unit awarded Mach a contract under the Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike (RIMES) program, naming the company aircraft integrator for a US Navy requirement: a drone that can launch from ships without large flight decks — Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, littoral combat ships — or from austere expeditionary sites, deliver the 1,000-pound-class munitions that currently arm the F/A-18 Super Hornet, and fly at least 1,400 nautical miles.

Unlike one-way attack drones, Atlas is a two-way aircraft. Inside Unmanned Systems describes the RIMES goal as a recoverable strike platform that can be "launched, recovered, refueled and rearmed" from helicopter-sized deck spaces; The Maritime Executive calls it a "two-way unmanned strike aircraft" giving surface combatants a slice of carrier strike capacity. No Atlas has flown.

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