Navy Awards Unmanned Carrier Aircraft Concept Contracts to Boeing and Lockheed Martin

x-47b-navyThe US Navy has awarded contracts to two contractors to refine concepts for the future MQ-25 unmanned carrier-based aerial refuelling aircraft.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) awarded a $43.6 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. “to conduct risk-reduction activities in support of the MQ-25 unmanned carrier aviation air system, including refinement of concepts and development of trade space for requirements generation in advance of the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the program,” according to the contract announcement.

NAVAIR also awarded Boeing a $43.4 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the same purpose in a separate effort.

The MQ-25 is the Navy’s designation for its current program to develop an unmanned carrier-launched jet aircraft to operate in a manner integrated with a carrier air wing. The Navy settled on aerial refueling as the MQ-25’s primary mission in a go-slow approach to mature the unmanned technology and free up F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters from the aerial refueling role. The MQ-25 could be assigned additional tasks such as surveillance.

The ability of an unmanned jet aircraft to launch from and recover aboard an aircraft carrier already has been demonstrated by the X-47B, which was developed by Northrop Grumman.

The work for both contractors is due for completion by October 2017.

Source: Seapower

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *