LOCKHEED'S X-62 VISTA FLIES 27 AI-CONTROLLED AIR INTERCEPTS USING LIVE SENSOR DATA

Summary from the TLDR Hardware newsletter

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and the US Air Force Test Pilot School flew the X-62 VISTA, a variable-stability test aircraft, through eight flights in which an onboard AI agent completed 27 autonomous air intercepts against a live T-38 target. The aircraft carried Lockheed's Legion Pod, an infrared search and track sensor that fed live targeting data directly to the AI, which then independently worked out the target's position and flight path and maneuvered the aircraft into intercept position, closing the full sensor-to-action loop in real time rather than in simulation. It builds on Lockheed's Supermassive AI framework, developed and flight-validated in roughly three months, with the next phase integrating RTX's PhantomStrike radar and expanded sensor and compute capacity onto the X-62 for further mission-systems testing.