Carrier at Sea Controls MQ-25A 2,100 Miles Away

Somewhere in the Pacific, the crew of USS Ronald Reagan reached an MQ-25A Stingray at a Boeing site in Illinois, more than 2,100 miles away, and took control of it. The US Navy said on 19 October that the carrier’s Unmanned Air Warfare Center “connected to, and controlled” the uncrewed refuelling aircraft while the ship was underway, with the link carried by a satellite network in low Earth orbit.

The test matters less for the distance than for where the controllers were sitting. The Stingray is meant to operate from carriers, and the Navy’s release calls this the first time a carrier-based control centre has connected to one while the ship was underway. Earlier checks of the ship’s new control room were run pier-side and at sea; this one put the carrier’s operators on the remote end of a satellite link, the arrangement the Navy needs if uncrewed aircraft are to work as part of the air wing.

The aircraft was ashore, and the carrier was the remote end

During a Preliminary Sea Trial aboard the Nimitz-class carrier, the Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) “used its MD-5C Ground Control Station to connect Beyond Line-of-Sight with an MQ-25A test aircraft using a Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) satellite network,” according to the release, which Naval News and Seapower published in full. “The Stingray was located at Boeing’s facility in Mascoutah, Illinois, while the ship was underway in the Pacific Ocean.”

That detail sets the limits of the test. No aircraft was launched from the carrier, and the Navy has said nothing about whether the Stingray was in the air or on the ground at the time. The release also leaves the satellite network unnamed, describing it only as proliferated low Earth orbit, the kind of constellation built from many small satellites rather than a few large ones in high orbit.

Capt. Daniel Fucito, who runs the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation Program Office (PMA-268), framed it in the largest terms available. “We have redefined naval power projection,” he said. “This first-ever underway connection between a carrier-based UAWC and an MQ-25A aircraft proves that the Carrier Air Wing of tomorrow is a reality today.”

The Navy called the test “one in a series of build-up exercises designed to validate procedures, networks and interfaces”. Earlier rounds, run with the MQ-25 Integrated Test Team of Navy, Boeing and Lockheed Martin staff, were conducted pier-side and at sea.

Reagan is only the second carrier with a drone control room

The control centre is new to the ship. Stars and Stripes reported on 2 October that Reagan had become the second carrier fitted with a Lockheed Martin-built UAWC, installed during a 17-month maintenance period at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, after USS Theodore Roosevelt received the first. The Navy describes the room as the “operational nerve center for MQ-25A Stingray command and control”.

The MD-5C station inside it combines the Navy’s command, control, communications, computers and intelligence network with Lockheed Martin’s MDCX hardware and software and other government equipment, according to the release. The Navy has also built shore and expeditionary versions of the MD-5, Stars and Stripes reported.

The tanker is a pathfinder for drones that do more

The Stingray’s job is refuelling. Each aircraft can carry up to 16,000 pounds of fuel as far as 500 nautical miles from the carrier, according to Stars and Stripes, taking over the tanker role that F/A-18E/F Super Hornets now fill. “The MQ-25A Stingray’s carrier-based refueling capabilities enable F/A-18 Super Hornets to fly farther and longer,” said acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao.

The control system is meant to outlive that role. The release says the MD-5C “will also provide command and control for the Navy’s future unmanned carrier aircraft”, and the Navy has tied the carrier installations to its effort to “advance technology for future Collaborative Combat Aircraft”, the uncrewed jets designed to fly alongside crewed fighters. The US Air Force is on a similar path; TSN reported last week that an F-22 pilot directed a YFQ-44A combat drone in flight. In Europe, Germany has just opened a contest for its own drone wingman instead of buying Boeing’s Ghost Bat directly.

The Navy calls the MQ-25A the world’s first fully integrated, carrier-based unmanned aircraft. The Mascoutah site where the test aircraft was located is the same Boeing facility at MidAmerica Airport where the MQ-25A made its first flight on 25 April, Stars and Stripes reported, less than six months before a carrier in the Pacific reached one there by satellite.