The Navy’s Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program is not being developed to adequately operate in potentially hostile environments and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel should take another look at the service’s requirements for the aircraft, according to House lawmakers.
Language under consideration by the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower panel says the Navy is not sufficiently focusing on the need of UCLASS to operate in an anti-access area denial (A2AD) environment, and overly favors surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities while limiting its ability to strike targets. The language was released on April 29 in markups that could be included on a spending authorization bill for fiscal 2015.
The document said the current and evolving requirements for UCLASS, designed to operate off aircraft carriers, do not meet the levels needed when originally stated in 2006 and in subsequent years and reviews, including in the justification of created the Unmanned Combat Air Systems (UCAS), a demonstrator program and precursor to UCLASS.
“The committee believes that current UCLASS Air System Segment requirements will not address the emerging anti-access area-denial (A2/AD) challenges to U.S. power projection that originally motivated creation of the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS) program during the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and which were reaffirmed in both the 2010 QDR and 2013 Defense Strategic Guidance,” the proposed language says.
“The committee believes that the Navy needs a long-range, survivable unmanned ISR-strike aircraft as an integral part of the carrier air wings as soon as possible,” the language says. “However, investing in a program today that does not adequately address the threat will only delay, and could preclude, investment in and fielding of the right system later.”
The markup proposes requiring Hagel to re-evaluate the requirements for the aircraft, and would block the use of the $403 million the Navy has requested for research and development in fiscal 2015 for the awarding of a winning contract until that study is complete. The Navy, however, does not plan to award the contract until mid-2015, months after the proposed deadline for Hagel to complete the study.
The Navy earlier in April released a draft request for proposals (RFP) to the four industry teams competing on the program, and took the unusual step of not making it publicly available. The four companies are: Boeing [BA], General Atomics
, Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Northrop Grumman [NOC]. Northrop Grumman is currently the prime contractor for UCAS.
The draft RFP had been postponed for months as the Navy continued to work through technical design requirements to ensure they are clear to industry as well as “realistic, logical and affordable,” Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the Navy’s program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons, told reporters in April.