Nominal Expands Defense Footprint as Mach Industries Standardizes on Its Test Data Platform

New updates have been reported about Nominal.

Nominal has secured a multi-phase partnership with Mach Industries, which is standardizing on Nominal as the core engineering, test, and operations data infrastructure across its unmanned systems portfolio. The agreement covers programs from early flight testing through high-rate production at Forge, Mach’s Huntington Beach manufacturing facility, positioning Nominal at the center of data flows for platforms serving the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Special Operations Command.

Under the deal, Mach’s engineering teams use Nominal to ingest test data from flight and ground runs in seconds, enabling immediate post-test analysis and cross-run comparisons in a single environment. Nominal’s automated checks and configurable workbooks let Mach define acceptance criteria, detect anomalies early, and maintain rigorous data traceability demanded by active Department of Defense programs.

As Mach accelerates its test cadence and scales production, subsequent phases of the partnership will layer in automated go or no-go reporting and direct requirements-to-test traceability, tightening the link between design intent and actual system behavior. Nominal’s platform connects data across simulations, bench tests, and live telemetry, providing a consistent analytical layer from development through factory operations and into the field.

For Nominal, the win deepens its presence in next-generation aerial and precision strike systems and validates its thesis that the fastest-moving teams are also the most data-disciplined. CEO and co-founder Cameron McCord said Nominal’s infrastructure is built to let defense customers move quickly without sacrificing rigor, a capability he characterizes as increasingly critical to U.S. national security. Mach CEO Ethan Thornton emphasized that compressing the loop between testing and production is central to fielding asymmetric capabilities faster than potential adversaries, a process Nominal is helping to operationalize.

Founded in 2022, Nominal positions itself as a secure, end-to-end test data backbone for complex hardware programs, particularly in defense and other mission-critical sectors. The Mach partnership signals growing demand for integrated test and operations data solutions that can keep pace with rapid “fly-fix-fly” cycles, suggesting a favorable growth trajectory for Nominal as more programs seek to industrialize their development pipelines around a unified data foundation.