US Navy takes another step toward unmanned carrier aviation

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published 11 November 2024. 

The US Navy has conducted a demonstration of the ability to fly an MQ-20 using the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control Station (UMCS). The demonstration was conducted with General Atomics and Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, and shows that the US Navy will soon have the technology to fly unmanned vehicles from its aircraft carriers, including the planned MQ-25 Stingray, according to a 7th November press release from the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program office (PMA-268). 

Air vehicle pilots from the US Navy used the UMCS to fly an MQ-20 Avenger uncrewed aerial system (UAS) as a surrogate for the future MQ-25. “This flight was the first time a GA-ASI UAS completed bi-directional communications using the UMCS operation codes while performing autonomous behaviour,” General Atomics said in its own press release. 

The MQ-20 was flown from the General Atomics Desert Horizon flight operations facility in California and the Navy’s pilots were located at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland. They connected to the UAS through a “proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) datalink.” PLEO refers to a type of satellite constellation that is operating in low earth orbit with hundreds or thousands of satellites, this applies mainly to OneWeb and Starshield – the defence equivalent of the commercially available Starlink. The US Space Force has signed contracts for access to both since 2022. A $70 million contract with SpaceX in 2023, and a five year contract valued at up to $900 million with Hughes for access to OneWeb. 

Two US unmanned vehicle pilots operating the UMCS during the MQ-20 test. Credit: US DoD

The UMCS “opens the door for efficiently introducing future unmanned systems into the complex carrier command and control architecture,” Captain Daniel Fucito, PMA-268 program manager said. The UMCS includes the MD-5 Ground Control Station that is built around Lockheed Martin’s Multi-Domain Combat System (MDCX™) autonomy platform. It is designed to have an open software architecture so that different UAS can be integrated into it and operated from an aircraft carrier. The MD-5 was able to connect to the MQ-20 through the General Atomics Tactical Autonomy Core Ecosystem (TacACE) software. 

In 2023, General Atomics flew an MQ-20 autonomously using artificial intelligence (AI) pilots and a pLEO SATCOM link. The company was able to retrain the AI and redeploy it whilst the aircraft was in flight, according to a General Atomics press release from that test. This is indicative of the type of capabilities that the US Navy is looking to deploy at sea. The MQ-20 is able to carry an array of sensors like synthetic aperture radar and an electro-optical surveillance suite, together with its ability to fly for 18 hours, it could provide wide area surveillance and reconnaissance to a carrier group, freeing personnel to fly other missions. 

The demonstration indicates that the US Navy will soon be able to fly different types of UAS from its aircraft carriers including those that can fly autonomously in manned-unmanned teamings. Autonomous technology is seen as an essential route for the US to increase its mass, as well as its ability to see and understand adversary movements in a large theatre like the Indo-Pacific. 

Calibre comment

PLEO offers low latency data transmission that is relatively robust compared with traditional SATCOM, accessing it through commercial providers can also reduce cost for data transmission very significantly. The sheer number of satellites also means that they will likely be resilient in the event that an adversary tries to kinetically destroy them. However, they may be vulnerable to cyber-attacks if there is not an appropriate level of care. This fate befell Ukraine’s SATCOM provider, TooWay, in the opening phases of the Russian invasion. A large and coordinated cyber-attack affected the servers used by TooWay users across Europe and led to the system being taken offline at a critical point for Ukraine. The influx of Starlink helped to avert a disastrous collapse in Ukraine’s ability to communicate.