Northrop Grumman completes eighth mission autonomy test flight, proving mid-flight software swap

Northrop Grumman's Talon IQ demonstrates a mission autonomy flight in Mojave, California. The company has completed eight mission autonomy flights as of April 2026. (Northrop Grumman)

Northrop Grumman announced the completion of a three-hour mission autonomy software flight test in Mojave, California, its eighth using the Talon IQ testbed, on 16 April.

The 15 April flight test swapped between Northrop Grumman's mission autonomy software, Applied Intuition's Acuity Air Combat Autonomy software, and Accelint's mission autonomy software.

Dan Salluce, director at Northrop Grumman, told reporters on 15 April that the eighth test involved the test pilot bringing Talon IQ's testbed, which utilises Scaled Composites' Model 437 aircraft, to altitude before handing flight autonomy controls over to Northrop Grumman's Prism software.

“In Flight 8 today, here in Mojave, we demonstrated that Prism, while making its decisions, could selectively load in skills, in this case, combat air patrol capability, from Accelint and Applied Intuition, as well as our own solution within our Northrop Grumman Prism suite,” Salluce said in a media roundtable.

He added that while the aircraft was in-flight, each software was queued up, swapping from Prism to Accelint to Applied Intuition and back to Prism.

Salluce said the advantages of choice, resiliency, speed, and capability in swapping mission autonomy suites are critical because “different missions demand different things”, adding that the demonstration showcased “the ability for Prism to select a particular partner's app or skill capability based on the demands of and the needs of the warfighter and the demands of the mission.”