Congressional Adds
Project CA88 is to fund the development of the next Experimental Platform for Intelligent Combat (EPIC) Design Reference Mission (DRM) to define and demonstrate mission-planned autonomous operations for Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and related unmanned systems. Identify required mission threads, autonomy behaviors, and operational workflows necessary to support government-defined combat use cases. Additionally, efforts will define integration points between autonomy software and government-owned mission planning, debrief, and test environments, including the Collaborative Mission Planning Continuum (CMPC) and associated enterprise mission systems. Identify required software, data, hardware, interface, and runtime assurance requirements and allocate responsibilities across autonomy software components, ground systems, and test infrastructure at appropriate classification levels. FY 2026 Plans: Develop and mature autonomy software capabilities within EPIC live-flight and Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) environments. Support government-led integration events, user assessments, and flight demonstrations to validate mission execution, safety constructs, and performance objectives. Prepare technical artifacts necessary to inform transition of validated DRM requirements into established programs of record. Establish design use cases to refine requirements definition, allocate requirements to hardware and software components, facilitate design working groups, and ensure delivered capabilities comply with applicable cybersecurity, safety, and architectural standards.