Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works bets big on AI to modernize defense projects

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works is putting artificial intelligence into the cockpit. It is also putting AI into the lab, the wind tunnel and the engineering workflow. The X-62 flies, and the AI calls the shots The headline result came on August 4, 2026, at Edwards Air Force Base. The X-62 VISTA aircraft carried out 27 AI-directed intercepts of a live T-38 target across eight separate flights. The AI ran on real-time data from the Legion Pod, an infrared search-and-track sensor. The pod finds targets by their heat signatures and hands that information to the AI, which decides what the aircraft should do next. That is what engineers mean by closing the “sensor-to-action loop.” The machine sees something, interprets it and acts on it, all on an operational combat platform rather than in a simulator. Ron Fehlen described the X-62 tests as a decisive step toward AI-augmented air dominance for the United States. Three months, one framework called Supermassive Skunk Works integrated and ground-tested the AI agent for the X-62 in just three months. The division credits a development framework it calls “Supermassive.” 55 language models and an OpenAI partnership As of October 2026, Skunk Work...