Flight test
Noctara completes first fully autonomous flight of Umbra demonstrator
The NX-1 Umbra demonstrator flew a 40-minute autonomous sortie from take-off to landing, validating the Noctis autonomy stack on a jet-powered airframe.
Autonomous aircraft · Built in India
Aircraft that fly themselves into the missions that matter.
Noctara designs, builds and flight-tests autonomous aircraft and the mission autonomy that flies them, for the defence of India and its partners.
Why we exist
The next generation of military aircraft will be autonomous, numerous and affordable. India should build them.
Crewed aircraft are too valuable to risk first and too expensive to field in numbers. Noctara builds aircraft that go ahead of them: low-cost, mission-capable and controlled by software that lets one operator task a formation.
We design the airframe, the avionics and the autonomy together, and we build and fly them from one site in Goa, so a design change can be flying within the week.
About NoctaraFleet
4
Aircraft platforms on one autonomy core.
Endurance
30h+
Nyx keeps a multi-sensor payload on station for more than a day.
Iteration
Days
From a design change to a flight test, on one site in Goa.
Sovereign
100%
Designed, built and flight-tested in India.
Platforms
Four aircraft. One mission system.
Every Noctara platform runs the Noctis autonomy stack, so capability developed for one aircraft ships to all of them.
NX-1Flight testing
Collaborative Combat Aircraft
Umbra
An autonomous wingman built for contested airspace.
Explore Umbra
NR-2Production
Long-endurance ISR
Nyx
Persistent eyes over land and sea, for days at a time.
Explore Nyx
NV-3Flight testing
VTOL Tactical UAS
Vesper
Vertical launch from any deck, any clearing, any road.
Explore Vesper
NS-4In development
Counter-UAS Interceptor
Strix
A fast, reusable answer to hostile drones.
Explore Strix
Missions
Built for the missions that decide outcomes.
From persistent surveillance over the sea to autonomous defence against hostile drones, our aircraft are designed around operational needs, not the other way round.
Air
Air Superiority
More aircraft in the fight, fewer people in harm's way.
ISRIntelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Persistent, processed and pushed to the people who need it.
C-UASCounter-UAS
Detect, decide and defeat hostile drones automatically.
MaritimeMaritime Domain Awareness
Watch a coastline the length of India's from the air.
BorderBorder Security
A watch that never blinks along the frontier.
StrikePrecision Strike
Find, fix and finish with a human on the trigger.
Technology
Noctis. One autonomy core. Every aircraft.
Noctis is the software that flies every Noctara platform: navigation, perception, mission planning and multi-aircraft coordination in a single stack, with an operator interface built for tasking formations rather than piloting airframes.
Perception
Onboard neural networks and classical trackers turn radar, electro-optical, infrared and radio-frequency sensors into a single, classified track picture on the aircraft, so the network carries tracks rather than video.
Resilient navigation
Visual-inertial odometry, terrain matching and celestial fixes keep the aircraft on course when satellite navigation is jammed or spoofed. Noctis treats GNSS as a convenience, not a dependency.
Mission autonomy
Operators describe the outcome: cover this area, escort that aircraft, defeat anything crossing this line. Noctis plans routes, manages sensors and re-plans when the situation changes.
Collaborative autonomy
Aircraft share tracks, divide tasks and cover for one another over a mesh datalink. A formation behaves as one system, and the loss of one aircraft is absorbed by the rest.
Command interface
One interface for every platform, from a ruggedised laptop or a crewed cockpit. Operators task aircraft, approve engagements and watch the shared picture without learning a new tool for each airframe.
Open architecture
Published interfaces for payloads, effectors and third-party sensors. Noctis integrates the systems a force already fields rather than replacing them.
Newsroom
Latest from Noctara
Company
Noctara opens dedicated flight test and integration facility in Goa
The new facility combines airframe assembly, avionics integration and a flight operations centre on one site, shortening the loop between design and flight.
Press release
Noctara emerges from stealth to build autonomous aircraft for India's defence
The company unveiled four aircraft and the Noctis autonomy stack that flies them, all designed and built in India.
Work with us
Build the aircraft India will fly next.
We are hiring engineers who want to see their work in the air within months, not decades.