The Integrator unmanned aerial vehicle has completed its first flight off a ship as part of testing before heading into limited production for the Marine Corps.
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The RQ-21 Integrator snags a retrieval line. Photo: Insitu
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The RQ-21 Integrator, built by Boeing [BA] subsidiary Insitu, conducted a two-hour flight off the USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19), a San Antonio-class (LPD-17) amphibious transport dock ship, after three months of land-based flight testing, Insitu said at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exposition last week.
The flight took place in March under the Marine’s Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) program designed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).
Ryan Hartman, Insitu’s senior vice president for the Integrator program, said the Integrator was launched from the catapult system and retrieved by a vertical rope line aboard the vessel. It hooked the line on the first attempt, he said.
The Marines ordered five Integrators in fiscal 2013, and in the budget request for fiscal 2014 released last week the service requested $66.7 million to procure 25 of the RQ-21s.
The Integrator, which carries a gimbled suite of various sensors, is a follow-on to the ScanEagle, which has been widely deployed by the Navy and Marines in conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and is also built by Insitu.
Integrator is larger than ScanEagle, carries a bigger payload and can stay aloft longer. The RQ-21 can fly at a radius of about 50 nautical miles from its operating center.