The U.S. Navy has remotely controlled a Boeing MQ-25A Stingray from the underway aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan for the first time. During a Preliminary Sea Trial in the Pacific, operators used the carrier’s Unmanned Air Warfare Center to control a test aircraft at Boeing’s facility in Mascoutah, Illinois, more than 2,100 miles away, through a beyond-line-of-sight satellite connection.
The link was established with an MD-5C Ground Control Station and a proliferated low-Earth-orbit satellite network. The test involved the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Program Office, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and assessed the connections, flight profiles, procedures, networks and interfaces required for future carrier-based unmanned operations.
The MD-5C is designed to control the MQ-25A and provide a common foundation for other unmanned aircraft operated from Navy carriers. Lockheed Martin’s hardware and software are integrated with the Navy’s command, control, communications, computers and intelligence network.
The demonstration did not include a carrier launch or recovery, aerial refuelling or autonomous combat activity. The MQ-25A is being developed as the Navy’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aerial refuelling aircraft, intended to reduce the use of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets for buddy-tanker missions and preserve those aircraft for other carrier air-wing tasks.