NX-1 · Collaborative Combat Aircraft · Flight testing
Umbra
An autonomous wingman built for contested airspace.
A low-observable, jet-powered autonomous aircraft that flies alongside crewed fighters to extend sensor reach, absorb risk and deliver effects deep inside contested airspace.
Specifications
- Class
- Group 5 UAS
- Propulsion
- Single turbofan
- Endurance
- 6+ hours
- Combat radius
- 1,200 km
- Payload
- Internal bays, modular
- Launch and recovery
- Conventional runway
Figures are design targets and subject to configuration.
Overview
Umbra is Noctara's flagship platform: a runway-launched, blended-wing autonomous aircraft designed from the outset to operate as a collaborative combat aircraft. It carries modular sensor and effects payloads in internal bays, keeping its radar signature low across the mission profile.
The airframe is built around the Noctis autonomy stack. Umbra plans its own routes, manages its own sensors and coordinates with other Noctara aircraft and crewed platforms over resilient datalinks, so a single operator can task a formation rather than fly a single aircraft.
Umbra is designed for attritable economics. Its structure, propulsion and avionics use components that Noctara can source and manufacture in India at scale, so the aircraft can be fielded in numbers that change the calculus for an adversary.
Capabilities
What Umbra does
01
Manned-unmanned teaming
Flies formation with crewed fighters and accepts high-level tasking from the cockpit or a ground station. Umbra handles the flying so pilots can focus on the fight.
02
Low observability
A blended-wing planform, internal payload carriage and signature-managed intakes keep Umbra hard to detect and harder to track.
03
Modular payloads
Electro-optical and infrared sensors, electronic warfare pods, communications relays and precision effects are swapped on the flight line, not at the depot.
04
Contested-environment autonomy
Umbra continues its mission when datalinks are jammed and satellite navigation is denied, then reconnects and resynchronises when it can.