MQ-25 US Navy Stingray Program
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US Navy previews MQ-25 solicitations
26 May, 2017
SOURCE: Flightglobal.com
BY: Leigh Giangreco Washington DC
The US Navy is taking one of the final steps before sending out a request for proposals for its unmanned carrier-based tanker program, with the release of a notice informing the industry that the competition for the MQ-25 development contract will be limited to four companies. Naval Air Systems (NAVAIR) Command intends to issue the solicitation for engineering, manufacturing and development to Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, according to a 26 May notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website. NAVAIR also intends to release a solicitation to those companies for an accompanying contract for studies and analysis supporting the MQ-25 EMD program.
Before limiting the competition to less than open bidding, the US military's acquisition procedures require NAVAIR must notify the industry in advance. “These companies have refined their solutions and matured their technologies associated with the unmanned carrier-based aviation need and award to any contractor other than one of these four companies would result in significant schedule delays and require substantial duplication of costs which are not expected to be recouped by the government through full and open competition,” the notice states. The concepts coming out of the EMD phase are expected to take a stark departure from the preliminary designs, which industry created to support the navy’s original requirement for a stealthy, carrier-launched surveillance and strike aircraft (UCLASS). The navy has since changed course with the MQ-25 Stingray program, focusing on a carrier-based airborne refueling system (CBARS). The UAV will not penetrate into defended airspace and attack targets, but the navy is planning a surveillance mission with a 19-23in-diameter forward looking infrared sensor turret. In April, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division offered a glimpse of their MQ-25 concept, though the image showed an wing aerial refueling pod trailed by a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and did not illustrate a configuration.
US Navy previews MQ-25 solicitations
26 May, 2017
SOURCE: Flightglobal.com
BY: Leigh Giangreco Washington DC
The US Navy is taking one of the final steps before sending out a request for proposals for its unmanned carrier-based tanker program, with the release of a notice informing the industry that the competition for the MQ-25 development contract will be limited to four companies. Naval Air Systems (NAVAIR) Command intends to issue the solicitation for engineering, manufacturing and development to Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, according to a 26 May notice posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website. NAVAIR also intends to release a solicitation to those companies for an accompanying contract for studies and analysis supporting the MQ-25 EMD program.
Before limiting the competition to less than open bidding, the US military's acquisition procedures require NAVAIR must notify the industry in advance. “These companies have refined their solutions and matured their technologies associated with the unmanned carrier-based aviation need and award to any contractor other than one of these four companies would result in significant schedule delays and require substantial duplication of costs which are not expected to be recouped by the government through full and open competition,” the notice states. The concepts coming out of the EMD phase are expected to take a stark departure from the preliminary designs, which industry created to support the navy’s original requirement for a stealthy, carrier-launched surveillance and strike aircraft (UCLASS). The navy has since changed course with the MQ-25 Stingray program, focusing on a carrier-based airborne refueling system (CBARS). The UAV will not penetrate into defended airspace and attack targets, but the navy is planning a surveillance mission with a 19-23in-diameter forward looking infrared sensor turret. In April, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division offered a glimpse of their MQ-25 concept, though the image showed an wing aerial refueling pod trailed by a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and did not illustrate a configuration.
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From Predator To Stingray, General Atomics Leads UAV Boom
Jun 29, 2017
James Drew
Its Predator revolutionized air warfare. Now General Atomics is taking aim at the next generation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), from a ground-up redesign of its workhorse MQ-9/Predator B and a bid to transform carrier-based aviation to high-energy lasers and air-launched swarming drones. A privately held company formed 25 years ago by Neal and Linden S. Blue, with now-retired founding President and CEO Tom Cassidy, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) is going up against the world’s largest defense contractors in a multibillion-dollar competition to develop a fighter-sized UAS capable of operating from an aircraft carrier at sea. In keeping with its track record of staying ahead of requirements, GA-ASI has been preparing for this competition for years. Its privately developed Predator C Avenger jet-powered UAS has been flying since 2009. A development of the Avenger will compete against rival designs from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray programan aerial refueling and surveillance unmanned aircraft that will relieve overworked Boeing F/A-18E/F fighters of tanking duties.
At the same time, GA-ASI is revamping its iconic MQ-9 Reaper surveillance/strike, long-endurance UAS to produce a version, the MQ-9B SkyGuardian, that can be certified to military and civil airworthiness standards. Equipped and approved to fly in national airspace, this will open untapped markets and operating regimes to medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS. Legacy is less important than where we’re going from here, Neal Blue tells Aviation Week in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Poway, California. What we’ve got today is marvelous compared to what we had yesterday. But what we have will look like a very primitive arrangement in the next decade, I hope.
That is certainly the case with the Navy’s plans to upgrade its carrier air wings. By the mid-2020s, Stingrays will be operating alongside manned Boeing Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, Lockheed Martin F-35Cs and Bell-Boeing CMV-22B tiltrotors on busy Ford-class carrier decks. Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley says the MQ-25 mission tanker is the first carrier-based unmanned program for the Navy, designed to extend combat range of the air wing while freeing up precious flight hours on the F/A-18E/F. He anticipates the release of a final request for proposals this year, followed by a down-select to one vendor in 2018. More than $2.4 billion has been earmarked in the Navy’s latest budget plan through fiscal 2022 to start development.
From Predator To Stingray, General Atomics Leads UAV Boom
Jun 29, 2017
James Drew
Its Predator revolutionized air warfare. Now General Atomics is taking aim at the next generation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), from a ground-up redesign of its workhorse MQ-9/Predator B and a bid to transform carrier-based aviation to high-energy lasers and air-launched swarming drones. A privately held company formed 25 years ago by Neal and Linden S. Blue, with now-retired founding President and CEO Tom Cassidy, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) is going up against the world’s largest defense contractors in a multibillion-dollar competition to develop a fighter-sized UAS capable of operating from an aircraft carrier at sea. In keeping with its track record of staying ahead of requirements, GA-ASI has been preparing for this competition for years. Its privately developed Predator C Avenger jet-powered UAS has been flying since 2009. A development of the Avenger will compete against rival designs from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray programan aerial refueling and surveillance unmanned aircraft that will relieve overworked Boeing F/A-18E/F fighters of tanking duties.
At the same time, GA-ASI is revamping its iconic MQ-9 Reaper surveillance/strike, long-endurance UAS to produce a version, the MQ-9B SkyGuardian, that can be certified to military and civil airworthiness standards. Equipped and approved to fly in national airspace, this will open untapped markets and operating regimes to medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS. Legacy is less important than where we’re going from here, Neal Blue tells Aviation Week in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Poway, California. What we’ve got today is marvelous compared to what we had yesterday. But what we have will look like a very primitive arrangement in the next decade, I hope.
That is certainly the case with the Navy’s plans to upgrade its carrier air wings. By the mid-2020s, Stingrays will be operating alongside manned Boeing Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, Lockheed Martin F-35Cs and Bell-Boeing CMV-22B tiltrotors on busy Ford-class carrier decks. Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley says the MQ-25 mission tanker is the first carrier-based unmanned program for the Navy, designed to extend combat range of the air wing while freeing up precious flight hours on the F/A-18E/F. He anticipates the release of a final request for proposals this year, followed by a down-select to one vendor in 2018. More than $2.4 billion has been earmarked in the Navy’s latest budget plan through fiscal 2022 to start development.
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Navy Issues New MQ-25A Stingray Draft RFP to Industry Ahead of Final RFP in the Fall
By: Sam LaGrone
July 20, 2017 7:26 PM
The Navy issued its latest draft request for proposals for what will be the service’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle, U.S. Navy officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday. The Wednesday draft RFP for the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling tanker will be the last refinement of the program requirements before the final RFP goes out to four industry competitors in the fall, Rear Adm. Mark Darrah, Program Executive Officer Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, told USNI News on Thursday. “What we’re looking for is.. our big next step in getting unmanned [aircraft] in the carrier air wing environment. The intent of this system is to extend the striking capability of the carrier air wing through organic tanking capability,” Darrah said. “We want to make better use of our combat strike fighters and extend the range of the carrier air wing, and that’s what this system is intended to do. That’s its primary mission.”
The draft RFP for a planned engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract award in 2018 was issued to directly to the four competitors – Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Atomics. The quartet will compete under new acquisition rules that allow the service to provide less specific guidelines for the Stingray as a rapid prototyping effort. For example, the MQ-25A effort only has two key performance parameters (KPP) for industry to adhere to in their crafting of the airframe for the MQ-25A. “In the NDAA 2017 language, the services were given the authority to designate one program as a pilot to reduce the number of key performance parameters that would be in our requirements documents,” Darrah said. “We have requested from OSD that permission in accordance with that language, and this program was selected, and we have two KPPs.”
According to MQ-25A program manager Capt. Beau Duarte those are:
- “Carrier suitability. The system needs to be able to operate off of the aircraft carrier and integrate with all of the subsystems of the carrier. That’s catapults, that’s existing launch and recovery equipment,” he told USNI News on Thursday.
- “Mission tanking. Sea-based tanker is the second KPP. It needs to be able to deliver a robust fuel offload at range to support an extension of the air wing and add flexibility of what’s available from a mission tanking perspective. There are a number of key system attributes or other requirements lower than that that are subsequent to [those] and are of lower importance and that will allow us to focus on those two key areas on tanking and carrier suitability and let those be the primary design drivers. “
Both Duarte and Darrah were reluctant to outline more specifics on the effort other than to say the bids have to use existing aerial refueling systems already in the fleet. “We are saying that you do have to use the existing aerial refueling store that F/A-18s [and] S-3s have used – and that’s externally carried – and that’s to reduce development, cost and timeline and risk,” Duarte said. “But how you configure the air vehicle to deliver that fuel is up to industry.”
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have published vague artist’s concepts of their bids showing an existing Navy buddy tank hanging from a wing like the current Super Hornets. Darrah and Duarte didn’t talk cost estimates or ranges they’ve provided to industry. “We have history. We’ve seen how [past] programs work,” Darrah said. “When we put a number out there, eerily they tend to get to that number and go backwards, go backwards in their development so they hit that number. We are taking a different approach this time. We’re not going to define the that number at this point and direct them to provide us with their input so that we can adequately and accurately determine what they truly can do.”
While the air segment is the most visible part of the Stingray program, the physical UAV is only a third of the effort, which also includes the Navy-developed control system and data links to control the aircraft. While previous iterations of what is now Stingray have been based on developing new technologies, Darrah stressed the new airframe effort is less about developing new tech and more about mixing and matching existing systems to make unmanned tanking a reality on the carrier. “The program has been structured so there isn’t any new development. There’s no new science here. This is an air system that will deliver an aeromechanical machine that can do the requirements,” he said. “The government will be the lead systems integrator for those 70-plus programs of record which we feel gives us the capability to incorporate open architecture, flexibility for change in the future, and we’re driving the contractor to plug in into that architecture, that existing Navy architecture in the carrier environment.”
As to when the MQ-25A will be operational, Darrah said the program was aiming for the 2020s. However, officials have said that Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is pushing to have a real-world unmanned aircraft fly off a carrier as early as 2019. The imperative is to alleviate the strain on the strike fighter fleet currently tasked with refueling the carrier air wing. The Navy estimates 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet flight hours are used for tanking. To support that effort, the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the service to reshape the craft in early 2016 from an off-cycle intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform with a light strike capability to into a refueling tanker.
Navy Issues New MQ-25A Stingray Draft RFP to Industry Ahead of Final RFP in the Fall
By: Sam LaGrone
July 20, 2017 7:26 PM
The Navy issued its latest draft request for proposals for what will be the service’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle, U.S. Navy officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday. The Wednesday draft RFP for the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling tanker will be the last refinement of the program requirements before the final RFP goes out to four industry competitors in the fall, Rear Adm. Mark Darrah, Program Executive Officer Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, told USNI News on Thursday. “What we’re looking for is.. our big next step in getting unmanned [aircraft] in the carrier air wing environment. The intent of this system is to extend the striking capability of the carrier air wing through organic tanking capability,” Darrah said. “We want to make better use of our combat strike fighters and extend the range of the carrier air wing, and that’s what this system is intended to do. That’s its primary mission.”
The draft RFP for a planned engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract award in 2018 was issued to directly to the four competitors – Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Atomics. The quartet will compete under new acquisition rules that allow the service to provide less specific guidelines for the Stingray as a rapid prototyping effort. For example, the MQ-25A effort only has two key performance parameters (KPP) for industry to adhere to in their crafting of the airframe for the MQ-25A. “In the NDAA 2017 language, the services were given the authority to designate one program as a pilot to reduce the number of key performance parameters that would be in our requirements documents,” Darrah said. “We have requested from OSD that permission in accordance with that language, and this program was selected, and we have two KPPs.”
According to MQ-25A program manager Capt. Beau Duarte those are:
- “Carrier suitability. The system needs to be able to operate off of the aircraft carrier and integrate with all of the subsystems of the carrier. That’s catapults, that’s existing launch and recovery equipment,” he told USNI News on Thursday.
- “Mission tanking. Sea-based tanker is the second KPP. It needs to be able to deliver a robust fuel offload at range to support an extension of the air wing and add flexibility of what’s available from a mission tanking perspective. There are a number of key system attributes or other requirements lower than that that are subsequent to [those] and are of lower importance and that will allow us to focus on those two key areas on tanking and carrier suitability and let those be the primary design drivers. “
Both Duarte and Darrah were reluctant to outline more specifics on the effort other than to say the bids have to use existing aerial refueling systems already in the fleet. “We are saying that you do have to use the existing aerial refueling store that F/A-18s [and] S-3s have used – and that’s externally carried – and that’s to reduce development, cost and timeline and risk,” Duarte said. “But how you configure the air vehicle to deliver that fuel is up to industry.”
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have published vague artist’s concepts of their bids showing an existing Navy buddy tank hanging from a wing like the current Super Hornets. Darrah and Duarte didn’t talk cost estimates or ranges they’ve provided to industry. “We have history. We’ve seen how [past] programs work,” Darrah said. “When we put a number out there, eerily they tend to get to that number and go backwards, go backwards in their development so they hit that number. We are taking a different approach this time. We’re not going to define the that number at this point and direct them to provide us with their input so that we can adequately and accurately determine what they truly can do.”
While the air segment is the most visible part of the Stingray program, the physical UAV is only a third of the effort, which also includes the Navy-developed control system and data links to control the aircraft. While previous iterations of what is now Stingray have been based on developing new technologies, Darrah stressed the new airframe effort is less about developing new tech and more about mixing and matching existing systems to make unmanned tanking a reality on the carrier. “The program has been structured so there isn’t any new development. There’s no new science here. This is an air system that will deliver an aeromechanical machine that can do the requirements,” he said. “The government will be the lead systems integrator for those 70-plus programs of record which we feel gives us the capability to incorporate open architecture, flexibility for change in the future, and we’re driving the contractor to plug in into that architecture, that existing Navy architecture in the carrier environment.”
As to when the MQ-25A will be operational, Darrah said the program was aiming for the 2020s. However, officials have said that Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is pushing to have a real-world unmanned aircraft fly off a carrier as early as 2019. The imperative is to alleviate the strain on the strike fighter fleet currently tasked with refueling the carrier air wing. The Navy estimates 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet flight hours are used for tanking. To support that effort, the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the service to reshape the craft in early 2016 from an off-cycle intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform with a light strike capability to into a refueling tanker.
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neptune wrote:The Navy estimates 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet flight hours are used for tanking. To support that effort, the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the service to reshape the craft in early 2016 from an off-cycle intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform with a light strike capability to into a refueling tanker.
Hmmm, retire all your long range strike aircraft, fighters, and tankers and now 20-30% of all Hornet hours are for tanking? I wonder what they thought was going to happen.
"There I was. . ."
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sferrin wrote:neptune wrote:The Navy estimates 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet flight hours are used for tanking. To support that effort, the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the service to reshape the craft in early 2016 from an off-cycle intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform with a light strike capability to into a refueling tanker.
Hmmm, retire all your long range strike aircraft, fighters, and tankers and now 20-30% of all Hornet hours are for tanking? I wonder what they thought was going to happen.
....how about a QS-3...I know where there are about 85 that are real cheap!
http://alert5.com/2017/07/22/poll-shoul ... a-program/
Poll: Should an unmanned S-3 compete for the MQ-25A program?
The latest draft request for proposals for the MQ-25A competition suggests the U.S. Navy is only keen on having the aircraft acting as a mission tanker and less emphasis is given on its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. An artist concept from Lockheed Martin showed a Navy buddy tanking pod hanging on a pylon. Do you think the company might just refurbish the S-3s under storage and offer them as unmanned tankers?
Should an unmanned S-3 compete for the MQ-25A competition?
Yes (74%, 32 Votes)
No (26%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 43
Back in 2014, the aerospace giant had wanted to bring back its S-3 by modifying those in storage to compete for the C-2 carrier onboard delivery (COD) replacement program. The Navy ultimately selected the CMV-22B. The idea of taking a manned aircraft and turn it into an unmanned platform is not new to Lockheed Martin, the company had proposed to do it on the U-2 spy plane. It also team up with Kaman to offer the unmanned K-MAX for cargo delivery missions in Afghanistan. The four-seat, twin-engine anti-submarine aircraft had been flying off carrier decks since the 1970s. An executive from the company was quoted back in 2014 as saying that those airframes in storage have an average of 9000 flight hours remaining. The Viking was also flown as a aerial refueling tanker during its career in the Navy. With Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson reported to be keen on having a MQ-25A catapulting off a carrier as early as 2019, an unmanned S-3 could be a viable option to meet that tight deadline.
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http://aviationweek.com/awindefense/mod ... -mq-25-bid
Modified X-47B Breaks Cover As Testbed For MQ-25 Bid
Aug 12, 2017
Guy Norris
LOS ANGELES—Northrop Grumman is using an X-47B unmanned air vehicle (UAV) as a flying testbed for air refueling systems in support of its proposal for the U.S. Navy’s upcoming MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling tanker contest. First details of Northrop Grumman’s preparations for the MQ-25A bid have emerged in photographs obtained by Aviation Week of a modified X-47B at the U.S. Air Force’s Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, Calif. The photos appear to show the UAV configured with a wing air refueling pod (WARP) under the left wing and a drop fuel tank under the right wing. The aircraft also displays an aerial refueling probe over the right wing, which indicates this particular vehicle is likely AV-2/502, the second of two X-47Bs that flew in the Navy’s unmanned carrier air system demonstration (UCAS-D) program that wrapped up in 2015. Though details are difficult to discern through the heat haze, the WARP appears similar to the Cobham 34” (inch) series which operates over an air speed range of 200 to 325 knots. The power for the system, which can transfer fuel at 400 US gal/min, is provided by a ram-air turbine, which is clearly visible on the nose of the WARP. The pod under the right wing is thought to be a standard auxiliary fuel tank similar to the 330-gallon FPU-8 or 480-gallon FPU-11 drop tanks used by the F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet respectively. One photo also shows what appears to be an open access panel or possible housing for an electro-optical/IR sensor set in the upper fuselage above the centrally located engine inlet. Little has been seen or heard about the X-47Bs—dubbed "Salty Dogs" by the Navy—since their departure from Naval Air Systems Command’s Patuxent Rover, Md., facility back to Palmdale in January and February this year. The aircraft had been in storage since the end of the UCAS-D program, facing an uncertain future when Northrop took them back with the intention of using the assets as flying testbeds for future development programs. The appearance of the modified X-47B comes as the Navy prepares to issue a formal request for proposals (RFP) later this year for the MQ-25A, the service’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle. The call for proposals follows a draft RFP issued in June for a planned engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract award in 2018. The request, which is targeting the ability of UAV tankers to extend the range of carrier air wings from as early as 2019-2020, was sent directly to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman was contacted for a response to the emergence of these images but declined to comment.
Modified X-47B Breaks Cover As Testbed For MQ-25 Bid
Aug 12, 2017
Guy Norris
LOS ANGELES—Northrop Grumman is using an X-47B unmanned air vehicle (UAV) as a flying testbed for air refueling systems in support of its proposal for the U.S. Navy’s upcoming MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial refueling tanker contest. First details of Northrop Grumman’s preparations for the MQ-25A bid have emerged in photographs obtained by Aviation Week of a modified X-47B at the U.S. Air Force’s Plant 42 facility in Palmdale, Calif. The photos appear to show the UAV configured with a wing air refueling pod (WARP) under the left wing and a drop fuel tank under the right wing. The aircraft also displays an aerial refueling probe over the right wing, which indicates this particular vehicle is likely AV-2/502, the second of two X-47Bs that flew in the Navy’s unmanned carrier air system demonstration (UCAS-D) program that wrapped up in 2015. Though details are difficult to discern through the heat haze, the WARP appears similar to the Cobham 34” (inch) series which operates over an air speed range of 200 to 325 knots. The power for the system, which can transfer fuel at 400 US gal/min, is provided by a ram-air turbine, which is clearly visible on the nose of the WARP. The pod under the right wing is thought to be a standard auxiliary fuel tank similar to the 330-gallon FPU-8 or 480-gallon FPU-11 drop tanks used by the F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet respectively. One photo also shows what appears to be an open access panel or possible housing for an electro-optical/IR sensor set in the upper fuselage above the centrally located engine inlet. Little has been seen or heard about the X-47Bs—dubbed "Salty Dogs" by the Navy—since their departure from Naval Air Systems Command’s Patuxent Rover, Md., facility back to Palmdale in January and February this year. The aircraft had been in storage since the end of the UCAS-D program, facing an uncertain future when Northrop took them back with the intention of using the assets as flying testbeds for future development programs. The appearance of the modified X-47B comes as the Navy prepares to issue a formal request for proposals (RFP) later this year for the MQ-25A, the service’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle. The call for proposals follows a draft RFP issued in June for a planned engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract award in 2018. The request, which is targeting the ability of UAV tankers to extend the range of carrier air wings from as early as 2019-2020, was sent directly to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman was contacted for a response to the emergence of these images but declined to comment.
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Look a high end unmanned deep strike naval platform is inevitable. The Navy figures they have the superbug, it can launch a ton of ordinance and great sensors, they also have the F-35C coming online which will bring the stealth abd network element to the fleet. They just want an organic tanking ability to extend range and allow them to conduct complex and elusive combat operations against an adversary to whom you cannot get to close. It's understandable.
The Chinese will have a very hard time finding a carrier on the move with organic tanking and stealth fighters. Not to mention supreme ISR in the form of the E-2 and also P-8/Triton. We will know where they are and can maneuver around them and strike around obstacles etc...
The Chinese will have a very hard time finding a carrier on the move with organic tanking and stealth fighters. Not to mention supreme ISR in the form of the E-2 and also P-8/Triton. We will know where they are and can maneuver around them and strike around obstacles etc...
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sferrin wrote:neptune wrote:The Navy estimates 20 to 30 percent of Super Hornet flight hours are used for tanking. To support that effort, the Office of the Secretary of Defense directed the service to reshape the craft in early 2016 from an off-cycle intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform with a light strike capability to into a refueling tanker.
Hmmm, retire all your long range strike aircraft, fighters, and tankers and now 20-30% of all Hornet hours are for tanking? I wonder what they thought was going to happen.
Maus needs to blame the F-35 again and quick!
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MQ-25 Program Validates Future Mission Control System Through Simulated Test
April 17, 2017
The Navy’s MQ-25 program completed its first demonstration representing how the mission control system located aboard the aircraft carrier will control and transmit information to an unmanned air vehicle in the future. The April 11 demonstration validated the first build of the MD-5 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS), a combined hardware and software product, using representative shipboard equipment and a simulated air vehicle at NAS Patuxent River. Capt. Duarte, PMA-268 program manager, observed the test event and said he was very pleased with the progress the team has made over the last year. The government team worked across multiple program offices, Navy and Air Force commands in addition to industry partners to prepare for the demonstration. “As Lead Systems Integrator (LSI), we have the ability to really drive interoperability and affordability across the program,” he said. “We have had the opportunity to leverage many existing technologies and capabilities from other Navy platforms and integrate them into this program.”
Within the LSI construct, PMA-268 maintains responsibility for the architecture, configuration, production, development and sustainment of the UMCS. The UMCS hardware builds on NAVSEA Common Display System (CDS) and Common Processing System (CPS) from DDG-1000 and other Aegis ships. It also incorporates the Navy’s Common Control System (CCS), a software architecture managed by PMA-281 that features a common framework, user interface and components designed for use with a variety of unmanned systems. The PMA-268 team integrated an open mission systems platform to support the reuse of government owned mission management, mission planning and sensor control applications. UMCS 1.0 demonstrated that third party software can coexist with the CCS framework, thereby proving the UMCS architecture is viable, Duarte said. During the demo, the UMCS communicated with a Mobile Aviation Interoperability Lab (MAIL) truck, simulating a UAV, verifying command and control. The team tested connectivity between the UMCS and shipboard network systems and verified voice trunking (internet protocol to serial) capability between the air vehicle operator and the simulated UAV. The team also performed limited control and data dissemination between the UMCS and simulated UAV to include Automatic Identification System (AIS) detection, Electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) Camera operation and dynamic mission re-planning. “The Surface Aviation Interoperability Lab (SAIL) and System Test & Integration Laboratory (STIL) were integral in making this demonstration a success,” said Jaimie Grubb, UMCS team lead. “By doing demos in the lab first, we are able to prove the control system concept before providing the UMCS to the air system vendor and undergoing test, which provides significant risk reduction as well as schedule and cost savings.”
This demonstration is the first of a continuing, annual series to demonstrate UMCS capabilities as development of the system progresses. Future demonstrations will show the ability to control a small UAS and establish the process for flight and cybersecurity approval s and the integration of software specific to the MQ-25A air vehicle. The UMCS, part of the MQ-25’s Control System & Connectivity (CS&C) segment, is one component of the system. The MQ-25 effort also includes an air segment and a carrier segment. The program plans to release a request for proposal for the air segment this summer and is working shipboard installations for the carrier segment. Operationally, the MQ-25 will provide a robust organic refueling capability to make better use of the Navy’s combat strike fighters and extend the range of the carrier air wing. It will also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.
MQ-25 Program Validates Future Mission Control System Through Simulated Test
April 17, 2017
The Navy’s MQ-25 program completed its first demonstration representing how the mission control system located aboard the aircraft carrier will control and transmit information to an unmanned air vehicle in the future. The April 11 demonstration validated the first build of the MD-5 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS), a combined hardware and software product, using representative shipboard equipment and a simulated air vehicle at NAS Patuxent River. Capt. Duarte, PMA-268 program manager, observed the test event and said he was very pleased with the progress the team has made over the last year. The government team worked across multiple program offices, Navy and Air Force commands in addition to industry partners to prepare for the demonstration. “As Lead Systems Integrator (LSI), we have the ability to really drive interoperability and affordability across the program,” he said. “We have had the opportunity to leverage many existing technologies and capabilities from other Navy platforms and integrate them into this program.”
Within the LSI construct, PMA-268 maintains responsibility for the architecture, configuration, production, development and sustainment of the UMCS. The UMCS hardware builds on NAVSEA Common Display System (CDS) and Common Processing System (CPS) from DDG-1000 and other Aegis ships. It also incorporates the Navy’s Common Control System (CCS), a software architecture managed by PMA-281 that features a common framework, user interface and components designed for use with a variety of unmanned systems. The PMA-268 team integrated an open mission systems platform to support the reuse of government owned mission management, mission planning and sensor control applications. UMCS 1.0 demonstrated that third party software can coexist with the CCS framework, thereby proving the UMCS architecture is viable, Duarte said. During the demo, the UMCS communicated with a Mobile Aviation Interoperability Lab (MAIL) truck, simulating a UAV, verifying command and control. The team tested connectivity between the UMCS and shipboard network systems and verified voice trunking (internet protocol to serial) capability between the air vehicle operator and the simulated UAV. The team also performed limited control and data dissemination between the UMCS and simulated UAV to include Automatic Identification System (AIS) detection, Electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) Camera operation and dynamic mission re-planning. “The Surface Aviation Interoperability Lab (SAIL) and System Test & Integration Laboratory (STIL) were integral in making this demonstration a success,” said Jaimie Grubb, UMCS team lead. “By doing demos in the lab first, we are able to prove the control system concept before providing the UMCS to the air system vendor and undergoing test, which provides significant risk reduction as well as schedule and cost savings.”
This demonstration is the first of a continuing, annual series to demonstrate UMCS capabilities as development of the system progresses. Future demonstrations will show the ability to control a small UAS and establish the process for flight and cybersecurity approval s and the integration of software specific to the MQ-25A air vehicle. The UMCS, part of the MQ-25’s Control System & Connectivity (CS&C) segment, is one component of the system. The MQ-25 effort also includes an air segment and a carrier segment. The program plans to release a request for proposal for the air segment this summer and is working shipboard installations for the carrier segment. Operationally, the MQ-25 will provide a robust organic refueling capability to make better use of the Navy’s combat strike fighters and extend the range of the carrier air wing. It will also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability.
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http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11 ... q-25-drone
Navy Reveals Which Carriers Will First Field Their Dumbed-Down MQ-25 Drone
By Joseph Trevithick
June 13, 2017
The U.S. Navy has disclosed plans to modify two carriers as part of the service’s MQ-25 Stingray drone program. These ships will be the first to receive the upgrades necessary to control the unmanned aircraft, which will eventually become a component of all carrier air wings. Just what the drones will do once they reach the fleet is another matter entirely.
Contractors will install control stations and data links for the Stingrays first on the Nimitz-class USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS George H.W. Bush, Jamie Cosgrove, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), told USNI News, according to a June 12, 2017 report. There was no word as to when the Navy expected to start that work, what the timeline would be for installing the equipment on the rest of the Nimitz-class carriers, or whether the gear would be standard on the up-coming Ford-class ships.
“MQ-25 Stingray will pioneer the integration of manned and unmanned operations, demonstrate mature complex sea-based ... technologies, and pave the way for future multifaceted multi-mission UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] to pace emergent threats,” the Navy said in a review of the highlights from its budget proposal for the 2018 fiscal year. “FY 2018 will continue work that was begun under UCLASS [Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike] and leverage previous work completed, focusing on the three segment areas: air, control system and connectivity, and carrier development.”
According to NAVAIR, the modifications to Eisenhower and Bush fall under the “connectivity” and “carrier development” portions of the program. To help pay for the changes, with Congressional approval, the Navy shifted $26.7 million in funding the service had previously set aside for a planned 4-year refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) for their sister ship the USS George Washington. The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2018 budget request included approximately $222 million for general research and development of the MQ-25A aircraft itself. The expectation is that the experience with the previous Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) project and the experimental X-47B unmanned aircraft will make these portions, or at least certain elements within them, relatively simple. While the exact final design of the aircraft, or even its basic configuration, remains almost entirely unknown, the control systems and connections necessary to launch, operate, and land a drone of this size are not. The control station for the Stingray will most likely be the notional MD-5A, which the Navy has had in the works for years already.
In its formal request for the control station's nomenclature in 2014, the Navy described the carrier version of the UCLASS Mission Control System, or CVN UMCS, as a line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight control setup using a “integrated Government-Off-The-Shelf (GOTS) solution” including the Common Display System (CDS), Remote Common Electronics Module (RCEM), and Common Processing Systems (CPS), as the key hardware components. The system would use the Common Control System (CCS) software suite for unmanned aerial systems, as well as gear to connect all of these systems to the carriers existing computer networks. The 2016 request for what became the MQ-25 designation also mentioned the aircraft’s data links would be compatible with the Distributed Common Ground Station-Navy intelligence production and sharing network as part of continued plans for a limited surveillance mission. The author previously obtained both of these documents via the Freedom of Information Act. Beyond those parameters, the Navy may actually already have a pretty good idea of the size constraints and any signal interference issues of installing the control systems, which would be some of the bigger considerations. Bush previously hosted Northrop Grumman’s X-47B during a series of at-sea flight tests. The ship was responsible for the first ever catapult launch of a drone on May 14, 2013. The next month, the vessel recovered the drone in the first ever arrested landing by an unmanned aircraft. Afterwards, the USS Theodore Roosevelt took over as the flight test ship.
Earlier in 2013, Navy officials had sent the X-47B out to the USS Harry S. Truman, but just to see whether it would be compatible with the Nimitz-class’ hangar bays, aircraft elevators, and existing communication systems. With so many transmissions already going in and out of an aircraft carrier, it was important to see if the pilotless plane’s systems would be confused by that, interfere with the workings of other systems, or both. The sheer volume of radio and radar emissions on warships means that the Navy has to be especially conscious of the potential hazards, which even include accidentally setting off electrical fuzes inside bombs and missiles. As such, the service relies on munitions with features deemed Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO) “safe” in order to prevent potentially deadly incidents.
It’s also worth noting that when the Navy decided to in 2016 to change the Stingray’s planned mission set, from strike and intelligence duties to acting as a recovery tanker with a secondary surveillance function, it only requested a new designation – MQ-25A rather than the previous RAQ-25A moniker – for the future aircraft, not the control stations. The requirements for the MD-5 series remained conceptually unchanged. It’s unclear whether the future MQ-25 with its new functions will ultimately make use of the previously proposed shore-based MD-5B or mobile, land-based MD-5C. The MD-5A will likely continue to be the nomenclature for the carrier-specific system workers install on Eisenhower and Bush.
.The actual design and ultimate operational concept for the Stingray will undoubtedly continue to be the more complicated portion of the program, which now appears to be simply called Unmanned Carrier Aviation (UCA). When the Navy fundamentally changed the UCLASS' proposed function in 2016, it initially referred to the refocused aerial tanker drone program as the Carrier-Borne Aerial Refueling System (C-BARS). On April 23, 2017, the service announced it had awarded contract modifications worth more than $18 million each to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, for additional design work on their MQ-25 proposals. So far (13Jun17), only Lockheed Martin has released any artwork specifically associated with the project, showing only an under-wing probe-and-drogue tanking pod, similar in size and shape to existing buddy-tanking pods the Navy has already had in service for years. The designs the four companies had initially proposed for the UCLASS program – Boeing's Phantom Ray, General Atomics' Sea Avenger, Lockheed Martin's Sea Ghost, and Northrop Grumman's X-47C – all had low-observable shapes and features based around the idea of strike and intelligence missions in an so-called "anti-access/area-denial" (A2/AD) environment, which may no longer be necessary for an unmanned aircraft that the service now expects will mainly orbit near the carrier itself. "The Navy came out with these requirements perhaps in the last six to eight months, and they still haven’t given us the final system requirements document – that should be coming any day – with specifically what they want this tanker to do," Rob Weiss, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works advanced projects office, which was responsible for the Sea Ghost design, to USNI in March 2017. "From our viewpoint, the requirements, as they are currently unfolding, are going to require a new design from all of the competitors."..
An unnamed Navy spokesperson told USNI News that the program was still too “pre-decision” to even speculate on when a production aircraft might actually be combat ready. Other sources told them that the service hoped to introduce the MQ-25 into carrier air wings sometime between 2019 and 2020. So, even if the design for the control stations and data links remain relatively consistent, the very concept of the MQ-25 itself may change radically as the research and engineering development stages continue and the Navy’s priorities continue to evolve. In a world full of evolving threats in space, hypersonic weapons, and other advanced challenges, the Stingray could easily experience more fundamental changes in both design and overall purpose before it finally reaches the fleet.
Navy Reveals Which Carriers Will First Field Their Dumbed-Down MQ-25 Drone
By Joseph Trevithick
June 13, 2017
The U.S. Navy has disclosed plans to modify two carriers as part of the service’s MQ-25 Stingray drone program. These ships will be the first to receive the upgrades necessary to control the unmanned aircraft, which will eventually become a component of all carrier air wings. Just what the drones will do once they reach the fleet is another matter entirely.
Contractors will install control stations and data links for the Stingrays first on the Nimitz-class USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS George H.W. Bush, Jamie Cosgrove, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), told USNI News, according to a June 12, 2017 report. There was no word as to when the Navy expected to start that work, what the timeline would be for installing the equipment on the rest of the Nimitz-class carriers, or whether the gear would be standard on the up-coming Ford-class ships.
“MQ-25 Stingray will pioneer the integration of manned and unmanned operations, demonstrate mature complex sea-based ... technologies, and pave the way for future multifaceted multi-mission UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] to pace emergent threats,” the Navy said in a review of the highlights from its budget proposal for the 2018 fiscal year. “FY 2018 will continue work that was begun under UCLASS [Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike] and leverage previous work completed, focusing on the three segment areas: air, control system and connectivity, and carrier development.”
According to NAVAIR, the modifications to Eisenhower and Bush fall under the “connectivity” and “carrier development” portions of the program. To help pay for the changes, with Congressional approval, the Navy shifted $26.7 million in funding the service had previously set aside for a planned 4-year refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) for their sister ship the USS George Washington. The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2018 budget request included approximately $222 million for general research and development of the MQ-25A aircraft itself. The expectation is that the experience with the previous Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) project and the experimental X-47B unmanned aircraft will make these portions, or at least certain elements within them, relatively simple. While the exact final design of the aircraft, or even its basic configuration, remains almost entirely unknown, the control systems and connections necessary to launch, operate, and land a drone of this size are not. The control station for the Stingray will most likely be the notional MD-5A, which the Navy has had in the works for years already.
In its formal request for the control station's nomenclature in 2014, the Navy described the carrier version of the UCLASS Mission Control System, or CVN UMCS, as a line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight control setup using a “integrated Government-Off-The-Shelf (GOTS) solution” including the Common Display System (CDS), Remote Common Electronics Module (RCEM), and Common Processing Systems (CPS), as the key hardware components. The system would use the Common Control System (CCS) software suite for unmanned aerial systems, as well as gear to connect all of these systems to the carriers existing computer networks. The 2016 request for what became the MQ-25 designation also mentioned the aircraft’s data links would be compatible with the Distributed Common Ground Station-Navy intelligence production and sharing network as part of continued plans for a limited surveillance mission. The author previously obtained both of these documents via the Freedom of Information Act. Beyond those parameters, the Navy may actually already have a pretty good idea of the size constraints and any signal interference issues of installing the control systems, which would be some of the bigger considerations. Bush previously hosted Northrop Grumman’s X-47B during a series of at-sea flight tests. The ship was responsible for the first ever catapult launch of a drone on May 14, 2013. The next month, the vessel recovered the drone in the first ever arrested landing by an unmanned aircraft. Afterwards, the USS Theodore Roosevelt took over as the flight test ship.
Earlier in 2013, Navy officials had sent the X-47B out to the USS Harry S. Truman, but just to see whether it would be compatible with the Nimitz-class’ hangar bays, aircraft elevators, and existing communication systems. With so many transmissions already going in and out of an aircraft carrier, it was important to see if the pilotless plane’s systems would be confused by that, interfere with the workings of other systems, or both. The sheer volume of radio and radar emissions on warships means that the Navy has to be especially conscious of the potential hazards, which even include accidentally setting off electrical fuzes inside bombs and missiles. As such, the service relies on munitions with features deemed Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO) “safe” in order to prevent potentially deadly incidents.
It’s also worth noting that when the Navy decided to in 2016 to change the Stingray’s planned mission set, from strike and intelligence duties to acting as a recovery tanker with a secondary surveillance function, it only requested a new designation – MQ-25A rather than the previous RAQ-25A moniker – for the future aircraft, not the control stations. The requirements for the MD-5 series remained conceptually unchanged. It’s unclear whether the future MQ-25 with its new functions will ultimately make use of the previously proposed shore-based MD-5B or mobile, land-based MD-5C. The MD-5A will likely continue to be the nomenclature for the carrier-specific system workers install on Eisenhower and Bush.
.The actual design and ultimate operational concept for the Stingray will undoubtedly continue to be the more complicated portion of the program, which now appears to be simply called Unmanned Carrier Aviation (UCA). When the Navy fundamentally changed the UCLASS' proposed function in 2016, it initially referred to the refocused aerial tanker drone program as the Carrier-Borne Aerial Refueling System (C-BARS). On April 23, 2017, the service announced it had awarded contract modifications worth more than $18 million each to Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, for additional design work on their MQ-25 proposals. So far (13Jun17), only Lockheed Martin has released any artwork specifically associated with the project, showing only an under-wing probe-and-drogue tanking pod, similar in size and shape to existing buddy-tanking pods the Navy has already had in service for years. The designs the four companies had initially proposed for the UCLASS program – Boeing's Phantom Ray, General Atomics' Sea Avenger, Lockheed Martin's Sea Ghost, and Northrop Grumman's X-47C – all had low-observable shapes and features based around the idea of strike and intelligence missions in an so-called "anti-access/area-denial" (A2/AD) environment, which may no longer be necessary for an unmanned aircraft that the service now expects will mainly orbit near the carrier itself. "The Navy came out with these requirements perhaps in the last six to eight months, and they still haven’t given us the final system requirements document – that should be coming any day – with specifically what they want this tanker to do," Rob Weiss, head of Lockheed's Skunk Works advanced projects office, which was responsible for the Sea Ghost design, to USNI in March 2017. "From our viewpoint, the requirements, as they are currently unfolding, are going to require a new design from all of the competitors."..
An unnamed Navy spokesperson told USNI News that the program was still too “pre-decision” to even speculate on when a production aircraft might actually be combat ready. Other sources told them that the service hoped to introduce the MQ-25 into carrier air wings sometime between 2019 and 2020. So, even if the design for the control stations and data links remain relatively consistent, the very concept of the MQ-25 itself may change radically as the research and engineering development stages continue and the Navy’s priorities continue to evolve. In a world full of evolving threats in space, hypersonic weapons, and other advanced challenges, the Stingray could easily experience more fundamental changes in both design and overall purpose before it finally reaches the fleet.
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https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/ ... e/1151543/
Release No: CR-184-16 Sept. 23, 2016
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $43,354,421 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0084).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded $19,145,579 for modification P00005 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0084) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-184-16 Sept. 23, 2016
Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, California, is being awarded a $43,606,518 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0086).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, California, is being awarded $18,893,482 for modification P00006 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0086) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-190-16 Oct. 3, 2016
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Poway, California, is being awarded a $43,736,111 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0085).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, is being awarded $18,735,000 for modification P00005 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0085) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-201-16 Oct. 19, 2016
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, California, is being awarded a $35,752,362 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to conduct risk reduction activities in support of the MQ-25 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Air System, including refining concepts and developing trade space for requirements generation in advance of the engineering and manufacturing development phase. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland is the contracting activity (N00019-17-C-0017).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, California, is being awarded $24,797,517 for modification P00007 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-17-C-0017) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-184-16 Sept. 23, 2016
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $43,354,421 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0084).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded $19,145,579 for modification P00005 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0084) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-184-16 Sept. 23, 2016
Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, California, is being awarded a $43,606,518 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0086).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Palmdale, California, is being awarded $18,893,482 for modification P00006 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0086) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-190-16 Oct. 3, 2016
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Poway, California, is being awarded a $43,736,111 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N00019-16-C-0085).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, is being awarded $18,735,000 for modification P00005 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-16-C-0085) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Release No: CR-201-16 Oct. 19, 2016
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, California, is being awarded a $35,752,362 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to conduct risk reduction activities in support of the MQ-25 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Air System, including refining concepts and developing trade space for requirements generation in advance of the engineering and manufacturing development phase. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland is the contracting activity (N00019-17-C-0017).
Release No: CR-071-17 April 13, 2017
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., El Segundo, California, is being awarded $24,797,517 for modification P00007 to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-17-C-0017) to conduct additional 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. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Last edited by neptune on 15 Aug 2017, 00:28, edited 1 time in total.
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popcorn wrote:Why 2 contract awards to General Atomics?
Each contractor has a mod "to conduct additional 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"
...sorry, I missed the NG mod, previously..
Last edited by neptune on 15 Aug 2017, 01:09, edited 1 time in total.
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