The company-funded YFQ-48A cut parts and weight to get Northrop back into an Air Force drone-wingman plan that already has two airframes in production.
A Gray Flag 2026 test sent a human-built mission plan to an autonomous MQ-20 Avenger, giving the Navy a platform-agnostic planning layer for combat drones it has not yet bought.
The service wants two prototypes that can survive catapult launches, arrested landings and Sea State 5 within a three-year certification sprint.
The first live missile shot from a US robotic wingman came ten months after first flight and ran on Anduril's own Lattice software, in the middle of a three-way autonomy contest the Air Force decides by summer 2027.
The Air Force put its Collaborative Combat Aircraft into production four months early, handing a defense-tech challenger a marquee program that Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman bid for and lost.