Apollyon Dynamics Shows the Nightshade Mk-2 Jet Drone, Targets First Army Deliveries of a Target-Drone Variant in December
Hyderabad's Apollyon Dynamics has shown the first photos of its Nightshade Mk-2 jet-powered drone and says a target-drone variant is due for Indian Army delivery in December. No Mk-2 performance figures have been published.
Hyderabad defence start-up Apollyon Dynamics has released the first photographs of the Nightshade Mk-2, the next version of its jet-powered strike drone. The company also says the first target-drone variant of the Nightshade family is scheduled for delivery to the Indian Army in December. The images appeared around 21 October 2026 and were captioned "coming soon". They are the most concrete sign yet that the company, started by students barely a year ago, is moving from prototypes towards products.
What has been shown
The photographs show a compact, autonomous jet aircraft with a pointed nose, a slender fuselage, sharply swept wings and a small turbojet engine in a pod on top of the rear fuselage. Apollyon's CEO has said the pictures show a physical airframe, not a computer render.
What the company has not released is a specification sheet. No speed, range, payload or weight figures have been published for the Mk-2. It is also not yet known whether the Mk-2 keeps the navigation approach of its predecessor or uses different sensors.
What the predecessor promised
The earlier Nightshade ADX-1 came with ambitious company-stated figures:
- attack speeds of 600–700 km/h;
- a warhead of up to 5 kg;
- a maximum weight of about 70 kg;
- strike range of more than 100 km into enemy territory;
- inertial navigation with terrain-following, so it can keep flying when GPS is jammed.
Those numbers belong to the ADX-1 and come from the company. They have not been independently verified and should not be read as Mk-2 specifications.
A family, not a single drone
Apollyon plans to use the airframe in three roles:
- Target drone: a fast, cheap aircraft for air-defence crews to train against. This is the variant due to reach the Army first, in December.
- Radar decoy: a drone that mimics the radar signature of a larger aircraft to draw out and saturate enemy air defences.
- Loitering munition: the strike version, with tests planned after the target-drone deliveries.
Starting with a target drone makes sense for a young company. It is a lower-risk product that lets the airframe build up flight hours with a military customer, while the more demanding strike variant is still being developed.
Who is Apollyon
The company began in 2025 as a prototype built at BITS Pilani's Hyderabad campus by Jayant Khatri and Sourya Choudhury. Its other product, the Ahuti Mk II interceptor drone, a separate design built to destroy hostile drones, has reportedly reached 498 km/h in testing, a figure the company itself reported. Apollyon was also profiled in YourStory's Tech30 2026 coverage of promising Indian start-ups.
Why it matters
Conflicts from Ukraine to West Asia, and India's own Operation Sindoor in 2025, have shown the value of large numbers of cheap, fast, expendable jet drones. They can be used as decoys to exhaust expensive air-defence missiles, as targets for training, or as one-way strike weapons. Iran's Shahed family is the best-known example. Indian forces have been buying loitering munitions in quantity, increasingly from domestic firms such as Solar Defence, NewSpace Research and others, and the defence ministry has opened its test ranges to start-ups to speed up trials.
A jet-powered Indian design aimed at the high-speed end of that market would fill a real gap. But a teaser photo is a long way from a qualified weapon. The December target-drone delivery, and any trial data that follows, will be the first real test of whether Apollyon's speed claims hold up in Army hands.
Sources
- https://defence-blog.com/indian-startup-shows-first-look-at-new-jet-powered-drone/
- https://idrw.org/nightshade-mk-2-uav-apollyon-dynamics/
- https://militaeraktuell.at/en/startup-apollyon-dynamics-unveils-the-nightshade-mk-2-jet-drone/
- https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/startups/story/a-drone-flying-at-600-kmh-this-hyderabad-startup-wants-to-redefine-aerial-warfare-542317-2026-07-10
- https://yourstory.com/2026/10/tech30-apollyon-dynamics-defencetech-indian-military