The UK Ministry of Defence has down-selected Anduril UK for the next phase of the British Army’s Project NYX: a first-of-its-kind programme focused on building autonomous collaborative platforms specifically designed to operate alongside Apache attack helicopters.

NYX exists to solve a real capability gap. The British Army’s AH-64E Apache is a formidable aircraft, but the realities of the modern battlefield demand additional combat mass capable of delivering more effects across a wider area, while also increasing the survivability of crewed platforms. The British Army, and NATO more broadly, require a new strike capability capable of penetrating our adversaries’ air defence systems and enhancing mission effectiveness in contested environments.

To achieve this goal, the MOD tasked industry to develop a new platform, designed to multiply the Apache’s capabilities across reconnaissance, target acquisition, and strike missions. Operating as part of a ‘command rather than control’ principle, these aircraft will provide additional airborne combat mass by augmenting British Army attack helicopters, unlocking new concepts of operation that will fundamentally increase the lethality and survivability of crewed platforms.

NYX is exactly the kind of challenge that Anduril was founded to solve: one that requires rapidly scalable, flexible, software-defined solutions. Anduril is applying to NYX skills developed bringing YFQ-44A, the semi-autonomous fighter jet that we’re building for the United States Air Force, from clean sheet to first flight in just 556 days, faster than any major fighter program in recent history.

They have already made progress on executing this mission. Over the last few years, Anduril has invested tens of millions of pounds of their own money to develop a new capability that will deliver for NYX. That early investment is paying off having already completed test flights of a full-scale surrogate vehicle, consistently expanding the flight envelope each time.

They are focused on delivering a capability that offers best-in-class performance and modularity, and one designed from the ground-up for collaborative mission autonomy. In doing so, we are directly enabling the British Army’s ambition to triple its lethality by 2030, with a capability that can sit at the heart of its future 20-40-40 force mix of crewed, re-usable and consumable platforms.

The implementation of collaborative mission autonomy software unlocks the ability to team with crewed platforms and manage swarms of launched effects, arming the British Army with the combat mass required to win, while reducing the exposure of crewed platforms to threats. The value of autonomy is something that they have proven time and time again, from air-launched effects to fighter-class autonomous air vehicles and more.

Beyond software, the platform will benefit from novel advancements in hybrid-electric propulsion and other related capabilities from the commercial VTOL market. Our capability will deliver the speed, range, and effects required to provide commanders with options, from self-deploying over long distances to rapidly penetrating deep into contested environments. Similarly, those same advancements mean that Anduril’s platform will offer best-in-class payload capacity, far exceeding the programme’s requirements and offering increased mission flexibility.

Critically, the aircraft being built is designed from the ground up to be inherently open, modular, and interoperable, ensuring that it can be integrated with the latest, sovereign, first and third-party sensors and effectors to meet continuously-evolving mission requirements for decades to come. It is designed to adapt faster than the threats it will face.

Project NYX is ambitious, urgent, and operationally relevant. Anduril UK has been busy developing the capabilities, the partnerships and the industrial base needed to deliver it. This announcement is a key waypoint on that journey.