DON Will Field 2,000 UASs Over Next Two Years

By Richard R. Burgess, Managing Editor

The Navy and Marine Corps will put approximately 2,000 unmanned aerial systems (UASs) into service over the next two years, Rear Adm. Bill Shannon, the Navy's program executive officer for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, said May 6 at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition.

Shannon said the Department of the Navy is unique in that "we are deploying UASs from across all of those tiers," speaking of the five groups or tiers of UASs that are flown by the Department of Defense. The Navy and Marine Corps operate systems from 1-pound, hand-launched micro-UASs to the Global Hawk long-range, high-endurance UAS. The Navy soon will be testing the X-47B unmanned combat aerial system demonstrator (UCAS-D).

A June demonstration at Yuma, Ariz., also will assess the various UASs competing for the Navy's Small Tactical Unmanned System (STUAS) program, which is designed to replace the Boeing/Insitu Scan Eagle UAS service contracts. The Scan Eagle is being used by the Marine Corps in Afghanistan and Iraq and aboard Navy ships in the region.

Shannon said selection of the STUAS will be made later in the year. Initial operational capability is scheduled for 2012, but if the operational assessment shows the system to be sufficiently mature, the government could exercise an early operational capability decision.

The first X-47B UCAS-D is going through stress testing and is scheduled for its first flight in November. Carrier sea trials are scheduled for 2011 and an aerial refueling demonstration is scheduled for 2013.

While discussing aerial weapons, Shannon said the trend is "convergence for multiple weapons to fewer weapons [but] multipurpose weapons."

For example, the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile will replace the Hellfire, Maverick and tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles.

The latest versions of the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Joint Standoff Weapon can be redirected in flight to alternate targets though reprogramming via data links. Shannon said the Navy is working on an upgrade to the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to enable it to be redirected in flight.

Shannon addressed the growing synergy between UASs and weapons that can be retargeted in flight. During a test earlier this year in California, Raven B and Scan Eagle UASs were used to update satellite imagery of a target area while a Tomahawk Block IV missile was en route to the target. The UASs detected the target and updated its position.

Using handsets, the UAS operators transmitted updated coordinates to the Tomahawk's launching platform, which sent the updated position data to the missile and reprogrammed its track. The missile hit the target, after which the UASs were flown in to conduct battle-damage assessment.