Posted on 09/23/2025 9:39:21 AM PDT by Red Badger
Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works has revealed its new next-generation stealth drone, developed to provide the U.S. and its allies with a formidable edge in achieving air dominance.
On Sunday, the company unveiled Vectis, which the aerospace company says represents a new class of collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that combines elements of survivability with lethality and overall cost-effectiveness by assembling Skunk Works’ many decades of fighter development and stealth design with modern autonomous systems.
With its official release, the Vectis drone is now positioned as an affordable framework for U.S. air power that can be integrated easily with crewed aircraft like the F-35.
OJ Sanchez, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ vice president and general manager, called the autonomous aircraft “the culmination of our expertise in complex systems integration, advanced fighter development, and autonomy.”
The announcement of the new Vectis stealth drone, which is currently entering development, arrives amid ongoing speculation about Lockheed Martin’s development of the SR-72, a proposed successor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird, which the company originally announced more than a decade ago.
Vectis Integration and Capabilities
As the developer behind Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, Skunk Works has conducted research and development behind some of the U.S.’s most advanced, highly classified, and exotic aircraft for more than half a century.
Over the weekend, the company said Vectis was engineered with compatibility in mind and for operating as part of a “Family of Systems” comprising the U.S.’s efforts to ensure next-generation air dominance.
At the heart of the ethos behind its development, Vectis was designed to be compatible with control systems that include Lockheed Martin’s own MDCX, which allows it to be integrated smoothly across a wide range of command-and-control networks. This allows the aircraft to be optimally suited for precision strikes, as well as reconnaissance, surveillance, electronic warfare, and intelligence missions.
Adding to its formidability is Vectis’s support capability for multi-domain connectivity, whether deployed independently or teamed with piloted fighters.
Range, Survivability, and Architecture
In addition to its wide range of aerial mission capabilities, Vectis was developed with range and endurance in mind, which are expected to make the drone an optimal choice for efforts in areas such as the Indo-Pacific and European theaters.
Fitted with Skunk Works’ state-of-the-art stealth technologies, the drone’s stealth capabilities also make it uniquely survivable in hostile environments. However, a main selling point Lockheed stressed with the rollout of its new drone over the weekend was the manufacturing cost in proportion to performance, which the company says will align well with U.S. defense priorities to expand CCA fleets at scale.
Rumors of “The Son of Blackbird” Persist
For years now, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division has fueled speculation about the SR-72, a proposed hypersonic successor to the legendary SR-71 Blackbird.
First announced in 2013, the SR-72 was originally envisioned as an unmanned aircraft capable of speeds six times the speed of sound, with advanced reconnaissance and strike capabilities—features which do bear some similarity to the new Vectis stealth drone.
Last August, The Debrief reported that some indications suggested that the secretive aircraft—or perhaps something conceptually similar—could potentially be nearing production, based on budget overruns tied to a classified Lockheed program that may hint at pre-contract investments in such a project. Lockheed Martin provided no details in response to queries made by The Debrief at that time.
With hardly any updates since the initial announcement involving the SR-72 more than a decade ago, analysts had speculated that initial test flights could be expected sometime in 2025, with operational readiness projected for the early 2030s.
Still, questions have lingered over the cost of the project and whether its affordability could become a complicating factor amid competing defense projects, leaving the fate of the so-called “son of Blackbird” uncertain. As the company rolled out its new design on Sunday, Lockheed Martin’s emphasis on the affordability of the Vectis stealth drone seemingly underscores such concerns that focus primarily on production costs.
A Timeline for Takeoff
The Vectis drone is currently entering development, with initial systems for the next-generation drone currently entering testing. The timeline for delivery is an ambitious one: Lockheed Martin aims to have design, construction, and test flights all completed within the next two years.
Overall, by placing its bets on agility and affordability with its multi-role stealth drone, Vectis could very well put the company on a path toward redefining the balance between crewed and uncrewed aircraft, delivering a blend of operational flexibility and survivability that may set new precedents in the aerial battlespace.
“We’re not simply building a new platform,” Sanchez said in Sunday’s statement. “[W]e’re creating a new paradigm for air power based on a highly capable, customizable and affordable agile drone framework.”
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Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
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Looks like...Nothing, but a beautiful nothing.
If a bomb or drone interferes with a light beam, one or more napalm canister shot(s) can be shot off to where the bomb or drone is likely to be.
A flaming ball of hardened metal would penetrate the explosive casing and set off the explosive at a point where it would do little damage.
It might have used sun tracking or compass guidance.
Well….I guess that is what folks have been seeing at night all over the place. It’s a UAP until the press release comes out.
Being next to Eglin AFB we see strange things in the sky all the time, people don’t even bother to look up..............
I mean for flight control, not guidance. The tailless designs never worked very well until we got small, high speed computers to get an unstable aircraft to reliably fly. The (X|Y)B-35 and YB-49 programs all crashed due to the inherent instability of the design. We got fly-by-wire right with the F-16 and then the B-2. Both are inherently unstable.
I grew up next to a B52 base. Those things were over all of the time, day or night.
I know exactly what you mean about not even looking up. We would have relatives come visit and they would stand on the lawn gawking at the lumbering BUF on approach.
Now we have C5s. I stop and look at those things. They look like monsters in the air because they are so big.
Why didn't we build SLAM? Three words: Nuclear Ramjet Engine ...
We have F-35’s. They are soooooo LOUD! You can hear them well after they have passed..............
Exactly. That’s why the drone was expendable. Eject the film cartridge and destroy the drone. It was a one-way flight over enemy territory without the risk of losing a pilot like Gary Powers.
It was quite some thinking and design work at the time.
Yes.
I remember reading some magazines for the defense industry, not classified but for the people in the industry, ‘Defense Science Journal’ many years ago (my stepfather worked for Hughes on military stuff) and what was in an available magazine was 15 years ahead of what we had at the time. And if it’s on the cover of a magazine you know we have black and highly classified stuff that’s way beyond that.
I was working in my garage a few months back and heard a jet flying over, sounding a bit different, so I went out to check it out. It was a C-17 flying low and not a half-mile away. Then I noticed another. Then another, and before I knew it I'd counted five total. I watched the first start its turn, then looked where it was headed and counted at least four more in the distance! A whole train of them. Really impressive sight.
That’s a drone? Good Lord.
“Why didn’t we build SLAM? Three words: Nuclear Ramjet Engine ...”
Ahhh yes project Pluto, in all its 1960 evil scientist goodness. The ramjet from hell that left a trail of radioactive fission products behind it and when it completed its mission the whole thing crashed kamikaze style into its last target reactor white hot and melting down more vigorously being spread all over the impact zone. The reactor was in a state of melt down it’s whole flight it was designed to be at the edge of holding it’s fuel rods really plates in a semi liquid state. Yeah even the MIC of the 1960 wasn’t that insane to field such a weapon. The Russians on the other hand have not only fielded they let a couple fly already it’s not sure if they recovered the reactors or let them sink and stay sunk. The last time if flew it killed 5 of its boffins trying to recover it.
Wow, I say, “WOW!”
Thank you, Red, for the update.
“Autonomous,” is a frightening word for an old Pilot to see.
To think that elevator operators thought their “skills” would always be needed!
Here we are looking at the advance of real “Auto,” displacing the skilled aviators of yore.
I’m happy to have had my go at it. 22,000 + hours from 1961 to 2007.
USAF, UAL, Ohio ANG, Coast Guard Auxiliary with my Piper Aztec!
Cheers!
There was an obvious reason the F-117 only flew at night.
“This will have the anti-gravity propulsion system, right? “
I am sure popular mechanix did an article bout that my now.
Along with all those rail gun and particle beam weapons articled being already deployed.
You let us know when the Russian have enough of those to protect a thousand miles of track.
L
C-17 is an amazing airplane. I watched one outside my office window swallow the armored VP limousine and 2 or three black SUVs. Parked side by side in the cargo hold mind you.
The takeoff and steep climb with that load was like it was empty.
C5 = “Aluminum overcast”
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