The Navy hopes to carry out the first shore-based catapult launch of the demonstrator X-47B unmanned aerial vehicle this week after canceling a launch yesterday due to weather conditions at a base in Patuxent River, Md., according to a Navy spokesman.
The shore-based testing of the Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built Unmanned Combat System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) is to take place ahead of plans to launch off an aircraft carrier for the first time in the near future.
The Navy is still aiming for a ground-based test this week if the weather clears up, Jamie Cosgrove, a spokeswoman for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), said. The Navy will evaluate the data derived from shore tests before determining whether to proceed on the carrier, she said.
The UCAS-D program is designed to produce an unmanned, carrier-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft with the ability to carry out precision strike operations, and to mature the technology ahead of the separate follow-on Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program.
The Navy has procured two X-47Bs from Northrop Grumman that arrived at Naval Air Station Patuxent River earlier this year. They resemble a smaller version of the Air Force’s stealthy B-2 bomber built by the same company.
The second X-47B was hoisted onto the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in Norfolk, Va., this week for maneuvering tests aboard the carrier. The tests were designed to demonstrate the X-47B can precisely maneuver on the flight deck and operate in a carrier environment, Northrop Grumman spokesman Brooks McKinney said.
Cosgrove said the X-47B will be on the Truman for two weeks before being transported back to Patuxent River.
“Assuming all tests on the carrier are successful and all the planned ground-based catapult testing at Pax River goes well, the UCAS-D team could potentially conduct X-47B’s first catapult fly-away from a carrier,” she said. “It’s a stretch goal, but there is a possibility.”
The Navy originally planned to deploy a UCLASS system on an aircraft carrier by 2018, but announced in February that those plans were being pushed back by two years. Rear Adm. Mat Winter, the program executive officer for unmanned aviation and weapons, told reporters in July that the 2020 goal was “ambitious” given the complexities associated with the technology, fully integrating it on an aircraft carrier and training operational personnel.
The Navy in 2011 issued four separate UCLASS research and development contracts to Boeing [BA], General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Northrop Grumman.