Air Force advances future of air superiority with CCA contracts

Key Points:

• The Department of the Air Force awarded contracts for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, including Increment 1 air vehicles and mission autonomy software, aiming to rapidly field advanced combat capabilities by decoupling hardware from software.
• Engineering and manufacturing contracts for CCA Increment 1 were awarded to General Atomics (FQ-42) and Anduril (FQ-44) ahead of schedule, enabling full-scale production of semi-autonomous systems designed to extend reach, awareness, and survivability in contested environments.
• The Air Force established a competitive six-year contract pool for mission autonomy software with six vendors, including Anduril, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, to accelerate software development and maintain technological agility.
• A performance-based competition will select a primary mission autonomy provider by summer 2027, with a novel payment model linking licensing fees to combat performance and operator feedback to ensure cost-effectiveness and capability alignment.
• The program utilizes a government-owned open systems architecture (A-GRA) to ensure software interoperability across different aircraft platforms, supporting the Air Force’s goal to field approximately 1,000 combat-capable CCA and maintain air superiority through continuous competition and innovation.