Hermeus Taps Anduril Mission Autonomy for Quarterhorse Mk 2

Hermeus has selected Anduril’s Lattice for Mission Autonomy software stack for its Quarterhorse Mk 2 high-Mach aircraft, Anduril announced on September 3, 2026. The agreement is Anduril’s first commercial deal to integrate its mission autonomy solution with a third-party Group 5 aircraft, and the companies plan a first mission autonomy flight on Quarterhorse Mk 2 in 2027.

Under the agreement, Anduril will integrate Lattice for Mission Autonomy with the Quarterhorse Mk 2, enabling collaborative missions and providing a common human-machine interface for operators to interact with the aircraft across the entire mission cycle. Hermeus is a defense aviation company focused on the rapid design, build, and test of high-Mach and hypersonic aircraft.

Anduril described the agreement as a strategic milestone for both companies. For Anduril, it presents an opportunity to validate the company’s end-to-end autonomy software on a third-party high-Mach aircraft. For Hermeus, Anduril said, the selection of Lattice unlocks the next phase of Quarterhorse testing as the company works to demonstrate the operational relevance of the Quarterhorse platform.

End-To-End Autonomy Package

Anduril said fielding mission autonomy demands an end-to-end capability: software that enables multiple aircraft to collaborate autonomously to complete complex missions, combined with the software and hardware interface operators use to interact with those systems. Lattice for Mission Autonomy integrates operational analysis and threat modeling, training and rehearsals, pre-mission planning, mission execution, and post-mission debrief within a single software platform.

Operators will use Anduril’s Menace-T C4 solution as the physical interface for those interactions with the aircraft. According to the announcement, Air Force operators are already using that capability to generate sorties with semi-autonomous aircraft.

Lattice for Mission Autonomy is also flying in the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. On June 17, 2026, the U.S. Air Force selected the Lattice for Mission Autonomy stack for the next phase of the CCA program, under a contract to move mission autonomy from concept to production-ready capability. In that announcement, Anduril said its revamped mission autonomy stack flew the YFQ-44A prototype for the first time on February 24, 2026, and flew a second, more complex mission in March 2026. The company said the stack is fully compliant with the Air Force’s Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA), a standard intended to ensure cross-compatibility between autonomy software and aircraft hardware.

Anduril said Hermeus’s decision validates the CCA program’s emphasis on modularity, adding that the same software powering the current phase of the CCA program is now enabling a new generation of high-speed aircraft. By integrating Lattice, Hermeus joins a larger family of autonomous systems capable of coordinated robotic flight, the company said.

Quarterhorse Test Campaign

According to Anduril’s announcement, Hermeus flew its first aircraft in 2025 and reached supersonic speeds with Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 just 364 days later, a pace Anduril said made Hermeus the fastest venture in aviation history to achieve supersonic flight. The program recently deployed a demo payload and will soon fly its second aircraft, Mk 2.2, which was built in under a year, the announcement said.

Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 reached a top speed of Mach 1.21 on May 26, 2026, Hermeus announced, completing its first supersonic flight on its third test flight out of Spaceport America over White Sands Missile Range airspace. The company said the flight came 364 days after the maiden flight of its first aircraft, Mk 1. Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 is the first of three F-16-scale supersonic aircraft in Hermeus’s development roadmap and is powered by the Pratt & Whitney F100 engine; Pratt & Whitney is an RTX business. Hermeus said it is already building and testing Quarterhorse Mk 2.2, with Mk 2.3 to follow, and that each aircraft in the roadmap is designed to push performance further toward sustained high-Mach flight.

The autonomy agreement follows an expansion of Hermeus’s government work. On May 28, 2026, the company announced a $159 million contract modification with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), increasing the total contract ceiling to $219 million to demonstrate high-Mach flight and high-speed payload release. Hermeus described the award as one of the largest contracts ever awarded by the DIU and said it is partnering with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to execute the expanded scope. Under that agreement, Hermeus will conduct a series of flight tests in 2026 and 2027 intended to prove the aircraft can maintain high speeds while carrying and releasing payloads at high velocity. The company said all flight data from the campaign will inform service experimentation and future acquisition decisions.

Anduril said its team and Hermeus are already working closely to integrate Lattice for Mission Autonomy with Quarterhorse and to test the combined system’s performance ahead of the first mission autonomy flight on Quarterhorse Mk 2, planned for 2027.