Unmanned Systems

Senate lawmakers want the Air Force to prototype capabilities to operate a tanker in a contested environment, providing funding in their mark of fiscal year 2019 defense policy legislation to pursue the effort.

The Marine Corps would like to purchase a shipboard-capable, unmanned aerial system that can operate from both a large-deck amphibious assault ship and a Navy destroyer for roughly $25 million a copy, according to a senior official.

Two Democratic senators added language to the Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill that would tell the Government Accountability Office to report on how the Air Force is improving the lives of its remotely piloted aircraft operators.

The Army on May 31 issued a request for prototype proposals for the Common Robotic System (Heavy), a replacement for its "outdated" Remote Ordnance Neutralization System robots.

The Senate Armed Services Committee recommends authorizing $100 million for a major Marine Corps unmanned aircraft initiative, according to a summary of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill, putting them at odds with House lawmakers who want to cut the service's request citing "unjustified cost growth."

Air Force Air Education and Training Command is gathering data that will shape whether and how the service allows enlisted airmen to fly MQ-9 Reapers, the command's top general told reporters this week.

The Missile Defense Agency is soliciting ideas for a kinetic interceptor to destroy ballistic missiles during the boost-phase of flight, a first step in establishing a parallel -- or potential rival -- program to the technologically ambitious effort to develop a speed-of-light weapon to kill long-range enemy missiles immediately after launch.

The version of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill passed by the House Armed Services Committee last week includes a provision that would require the Defense Department to provide information on its efforts to protect Army maneuver forces from low-cost unmanned aircraft systems.

The House Armed Services Committee is nudging the Air Force to invest more in its EQ-4B Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft, a modified version of Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk, in the chairman's mark of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill.