AEVEX Corp. has been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ceiling of nearly $400 million to supply unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and associated support services to an unnamed U.S. customer, the company said on November 10, 2026. For scale, the Solana Beach, California, company reported funded backlog of $259.8 million at June 30, 2026; the new figure is a ceiling, and the announcement does not say how much has been ordered under the contract.

In a press release dated November 10, 2026, AEVEX said the multi-year award establishes a flexible contracting framework that lets the customer procure UAS and associated support services across a range of mission needs. The announcement came one day before the company’s scheduled third-quarter 2026 results.

What the IDIQ award covers

AEVEX said the contract validates growing demand for adaptable, scalable UAS capabilities and reinforces its role as a U.S.-based provider of mission-focused technology and engineering expertise. The company said it develops, produces and supports UAS designed for affordability, modularity and rapid fielding.

“This award deepens our role in helping customers field unmanned aircraft systems that can be manufactured at scale and adapted as mission needs evolve,” said Roger Wells, Chief Executive Officer at AEVEX.

Wells said in the release that the IDIQ positions AEVEX to support customers as they advance initiatives aimed at accelerating UAS capability development and more agile acquisition models.

The release leaves several questions open for operators and suppliers tracking the award. It does not identify the customer or the agency behind the award, give a period of performance beyond describing the award as multi-year, say whether other companies hold awards under the same vehicle, or disclose the value of any initial task order. It names no aircraft type and gives no quantities.

AEVEX’s position after its stock market listing

AEVEX describes itself as a U.S. defense technology company that delivers autonomous unmanned systems, AI-enabled mission software, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and electronic warfare solutions to national security customers. In its initial public offering announcement, the company listed headquarters in Solana Beach with additional facilities in California, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Alabama, and offerings that include UAS, what it called combat-proven loitering munitions, and multi-mission unmanned surface vehicles.

AEVEX priced its offering on April 16, 2026, at 16,000,000 Class A common shares at $20.00 each, with trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker AVEX expected to begin on April 17, 2026, according to the company’s pricing announcement. The pricing followed the IPO plans AirPro News covered earlier in April. The company is a portfolio company of Madison Dearborn Partners’ funds, the announcement said.

In its second-quarter 2026 results, released on August 12, 2026, AEVEX reported revenue of $201.8 million, against $101.1 million a year earlier. Its Tactical Systems segment brought in $174.2 million, which the company said was driven by UAS products and support services; the results release cites $72.2 million from the EUCOM AOR Deep Strike program. Funded backlog fell to $259.8 million at June 30, 2026, from $503.1 million at December 31, 2025, which the company attributed mainly to revenue recognized on that program. AEVEX raised its full-year 2026 outlook to revenue of $700.0 million to $720.0 million.

A run of unmanned awards and what comes next

The new IDIQ follows a series of smaller awards that AEVEX has announced in 2026. Its second-quarter awards included an $18.5 million U.S. Air Force award for UAS delivery and engineering services and $50 million from the U.S. Air Force for advanced unmanned mission capabilities. In August 2026, the company announced a $41 million award to support U.S. government customers in delivering one-way attack systems, and on September 9, 2026, it announced $20.5 million in new awards to deliver and further develop one-way attack system capabilities for U.S. government customers.

On September 23, 2026, AEVEX announced its jet-powered Specter attack platform, a turbojet-powered one-way attack system still under development with advanced manufacturing company Divergent. The company said Specter will have ground-launched and air-launched variants and a modular, swappable nose section for kinetic, non-kinetic, electronic warfare and ISR payloads.

AEVEX said it will release third-quarter 2026 results after the close of U.S. financial markets on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, and hold a conference call at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time that day. Wells and Chief Financial Officer Todd Booth are scheduled to present at the Baird Global Industrial Conference in Chicago on November 12, 2026. The IDIQ release does not say when the first orders under the contract are expected.

Northrop Grumman and Hermeus Corporation have signed a teaming agreement to field a new class of autonomous, high-Mach military aircraft, pairing Northrop Grumman’s mission systems with Hermeus’ Quarterhorse aircraft. The agreement brings a large defense prime onto a program that Hermeus is already flight testing under a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) contract with a ceiling of $219 million.

In a press release dated November 12, 2026, issued from Baltimore, Northrop Grumman said the agreement is meant to give warfighters faster and more survivable combat options. The company said it will combine its combat-proven mission systems and its “ready-now” electronic warfare, communication, sensing and autonomy expertise with Hermeus’ high-speed Quarterhorse aircraft.

What each company brings

According to the release, the agreement combines Northrop Grumman’s mission systems, payload integration and autonomy expertise with Hermeus’ rapidly developed aircraft, which are designed to operate at supersonic speeds and above. Northrop Grumman framed the deal around the speed of fielding, saying the threat environment is accelerating and that the Department of War needs autonomous systems developed and fielded in months rather than years.

Kyle Mimken, a program manager at Northrop Grumman, said defense technology must evolve faster than ever because customers need solutions now. He said the two companies would give the military a new operational edge by putting advanced mission kits on aircraft built to move beyond supersonic speeds.

The release does not disclose the value of the agreement, which Quarterhorse aircraft will carry Northrop Grumman equipment, when that equipment will first fly, or a specific customer program.

A pattern of prime and new-entrant teams

Northrop Grumman said it is actively partnering with new-entrant innovators to lead the Department of War’s effort to evolve partnerships, with the goal of developing, producing and fielding more affordable technologies at speed and scale. The Hermeus agreement follows a similar pairing announced on January 8, 2026, when Kratos Defense & Security Solutions said Northrop Grumman had won, through competition, the U.S. Marine Corps’ Marine Air-Ground Task Force Uncrewed Expeditionary Tactical Aircraft (MUX TACAIR) Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) award.

In the Marine Corps MUX TACAIR program, according to Kratos, Northrop Grumman is to develop and deliver an Advanced Mission Kit of sensors and software-defined technologies and its Prism open architecture autonomy software, paired with Kratos’ Valkyrie uncrewed aerial system. The Hermeus agreement follows the same division of labor: Northrop Grumman’s mission equipment on an aircraft built by a newer company.

Where the Quarterhorse program stands

Hermeus, a venture-backed defense aviation company, is building a series of increasingly capable Quarterhorse aircraft rather than a single operational design. In a company blog post titled “The Road to High-Mach,” Hermeus said the Quarterhorse Mk 1 made the company’s maiden flight in May 2025 at Edwards Air Force Base, powered by a GE J85 turbojet.

The Quarterhorse Mk 2.1, roughly the size of an F-16 and powered by a Pratt & Whitney F100 engine, flew its first mission in February 2026. On May 26, 2026, Hermeus announced that the aircraft had reached Mach 1.21 on its first supersonic flight, flown from Spaceport America over White Sands Missile Range airspace. Hermeus later said the Mk 2.1 reached Mach 1.6 on its fourth flight and, on its following flight two weeks later, deployed a demonstration payload.

The next aircraft, the Mk 2.2, was built in eight months and began its flight campaign in September 2026, according to Hermeus. It has upgraded avionics and software, more fuel capacity and a propulsion system called Gryphon with an actuated spike inlet, and its campaign aims to validate the propulsion architecture beyond Mach 2. The Mk 2.3 is meant to approach Mach 3, and a later Mk 3 is planned as the first aircraft powered by the company’s Chimera II turbine-based combined-cycle (TBCC) system, which Hermeus said will demonstrate turbine-to-ramjet mode transition in flight.

Funding, autonomy and the customer

In a release dated May 28, 2026, Hermeus said it had secured a $159 million contract modification with the DIU, raising the total contract ceiling to $219 million to demonstrate high-Mach flight and high-speed payload release. Hermeus said it is partnering with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy on that expanded scope, with intensive flight tests in 2026 and 2027, and that all flight data will inform service experimentation and future acquisition decisions.

Northrop Grumman is not the first company to join the mission side of Quarterhorse. Hermeus has also partnered with Anduril Industries, whose Lattice for Mission Autonomy software is to become the core software engine for mission planning and execution on the Quarterhorse Mk 2 platform. Hermeus said the teams are already integrating and testing the Lattice and Quarterhorse combination, with a first flight planned for 2027. The Northrop Grumman release does not say how its mission kit and autonomy work will relate to the Anduril integration.

AirPro News analysis

We read the agreement as a step from speed demonstration toward a mission-equipped aircraft. Hermeus’ DIU work already centers on high-speed payload release, Anduril’s software is slated to run mission planning, and Northrop Grumman now adds electronic warfare, sensing and payload integration. That is the same mission-kit-plus-airframe model Northrop Grumman is using with Kratos for the Marine Corps.

The open questions are commercial. Neither the value of the agreement, the aircraft that will carry Northrop Grumman equipment, nor a customer program of record has been disclosed, and those details will show how close the Quarterhorse line is to an operational requirement.

Starfighters Space, which flies Mach 2+ F-104 jets from Kennedy Space Center, has joined a team led by Exos Aerospace Systems & Technologies that is seeking work through the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) Velocity Alliance. The Air Force Test Center has rated the team’s white paper technically acceptable, but the teaming is not a contract award.

In a press release distributed on Business Wire on November 10, 2026, Starfighters (NYSE American: FJET) said Exos submitted the white paper under the Alliance’s second onboarding opportunity, Solicitation FA9101-26-9-Velocity_Alliance, naming Starfighters as its external teaming partner. The pairing puts an airborne flight-test provider on a team seeking a place in a consortium that AEDC itself describes as a vehicle for modernizing aerospace ground test capabilities.

What the Velocity Alliance is

According to the Starfighters release, AEDC and the Air Force Test Center established the Velocity Alliance as an enterprise-level acquisition vehicle to accelerate the sustainment, restoration and modernization of critical U.S. aerospace test infrastructure, including for hypersonic technologies. The release says the Air Force describes it as a pre-qualified, competitive ecosystem of industry partners supporting a multibillion-dollar portfolio of infrastructure projects.

An article by AEDC Public Affairs, written by Diamond Brown and published on the Air Force Test Center website, gives more detail. It describes the Alliance as an enterprise-level acquisition vehicle for modernizing the nation’s aerospace ground test capabilities, operating mainly under the Other Transaction authorities of 10 U.S.C. § 4022 and 10 U.S.C. § 2808a. Prospective members must meet technical, cybersecurity and other requirements before joining, and the consortium can include traditional and non-traditional defense contractors, small businesses, nonprofit organizations and research institutions.

Greg Jones, agreements officer for the AEDC Velocity Alliance Consortium, said in the article that the framework avoids traditional acquisition bureaucracy and is designed for procurement integrity, transparency and a speed of acquisition AEDC has not seen before. AEDC says the modernization supports hypersonic platforms, advanced sensors and technologies enabling the Long-Range Kill Chain.

What Starfighters brings to the Exos team

The release says Starfighters’ F-104 aircraft can carry test articles and payloads through high-speed atmospheric flight, supporting research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) of aerospace and defense technologies. A typical 45-minute mission can include up to approximately 10 minutes at Mach 2+.

John Quinn, co-founder and CEO of Exos Aerospace, said adding Starfighters gives the team a high-speed airborne test capability that complements AEDC’s ground-test facilities. He said the operational F-104 fleet would let the team offer “real-atmosphere flight data” alongside the agency’s modernized infrastructure.

Tim Franta, CEO of Starfighters Space, said the company brings “a capability that is extremely difficult to replicate.” He said Exos selected Starfighters for high-speed airborne flight testing and that successful onboarding would create another pathway to government missions.

The airborne test pitch

The teaming follows the company’s July 28, 2026, announcement of the next development phase of its Wind Tunnel in the Sky platform, for which it is designing a modular, reusable underwing platform that can host sensors, test articles and other payloads. In that release, Starfighters said ground wind tunnel test runs typically last only seconds, while a single flight can replace what might otherwise take days of facility scheduling. Franta said then that “access to specialized test infrastructure remains limited,” and that airborne testing can expose hardware to weather variation, vibration, acceleration, dynamic pressure and temperature conditions that a fixed facility cannot fully reproduce. He also said ground wind tunnels remain essential.

The release also cites earlier work. Starfighters previously demonstrated airborne testing through GE Aerospace’s Atmospheric Test of Launched Airbreathing System (ATLAS) program, a separate effort funded under Defense Production Act Title III and unrelated to AEDC. In that earlier F-104 test campaign, a Starfighters F-104 completed three supersonic captive-carry flights from Kennedy Space Center carrying an advanced propulsion test vehicle. The July release also cites flight testing for its STARLAUNCH 1 demonstrator.

Who is on the team

Starfighters, which describes itself as operating the world’s only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ supersonic aircraft, flies its F-104s from Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Midland International Air & Space Port in Texas. In a year-end update dated December 23, 2025, following its NYSE American listing, the company said its modified supersonic aircraft can act as a first-stage lifting platform carrying payloads up to 45,000 feet for air launch to space. Its jets can also serve as platforms for pilot training and for RDT&E work on hypersonic technologies, advanced materials, missile defense, microgravity science, spaceflight hardware validation and defense electronic systems.

Exos Aerospace is headquartered in Greenville, Texas, and builds and operates reusable suborbital rockets. According to the release, it has flown commercial payloads since 2018 on its SARGE vehicle, and its successor vehicle, BLK3, is scheduled for its next flight in early 2027.

What the teaming does and does not mean

The release states that participation in onboarding is not a contract award, task order or government funding commitment. It says there is no assurance that Exos will complete onboarding or receive a project award, or that Starfighters will generate Velocity Alliance revenue. References to AEDC, the Air Force Test Center and the U.S. Air Force do not imply endorsement by the Department of the Air Force or the Department of Defense, the release adds.

The next step, according to Starfighters, is for the Exos team to complete the remaining onboarding requirements. Neither company disclosed which Velocity Alliance projects the team intends to pursue.