Divergent and Mach Industries deliver UAS prototype in 71 days
Digital manufacturing platform collapses traditional aerospace development timelines to produce Venom autonomous strike aircraft prototype
Divergent Technologies and Mach Industries have collaborated on the production of a prototype autonomous strike aircraft dubbed Venom, taking the concept to a flight-ready demo in just 71 days.
The program paired Mach Industries’ avionics, simulation, and modular open-systems architecture with Divergent’s Adaptive Production System (DAPS), a software-defined manufacturing platform the company claims collapses traditional multi-hundred-part assemblies into unified, additively manufactured structures.
Divergent executed the digital design and 3D printing of the Venom airframe – including wings, fuselage, skins, and control surfaces – as monolithic assemblies rather than conventional multi-part builds.
“Going from inception to flight in 71 days is a clear demonstration of what’s possible when Divergent’s Adaptive Production System is utilized from day one,” said Lukas Czinger, Co-Founder and CEO of Divergent Technologies. “Most importantly, Divergent will drive the rapid scale-up of this system, producing thousands of airframes annually.”
The US Department of War framed the milestone as directly relevant to current acquisition priorities.
“This isn’t just an impressive metric – it’s a direct enabler of our strategy to achieve affordable mass and support the SECWAR’s ‘Drone Dominance’ vision,” stated Alex Lovett, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Mission Capabilities in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering.
“Over the last 18 months Mach has taken four products from concept to flight test through rapid iteration, and Divergent’s adaptive tech stack has been instrumental in accelerating that iteration,” said Ethan Thornton, Founder and CEO of Mach.
“Mach’s selection for a production contract is the first of many opportunities to show not only speed to prototype, but speed to scaled manufacturing.”
By using a shared simulation and controls foundation, the two companies said they supported parallel development and accelerated hardware-software validation throughout the program.
