The Marine Corps plans to field a large, sea-based unmanned aerial system with strike capability dubbed the MQ-X in 2025 that may be revealed in fiscal year 2018 budget documents, according to a service official.
Col. Christopher Patton, deputy director of the aviation enablers branch at Headquarters Marine Corps Aviation, told Inside the Navy during a Sept. 1 interview at the Pentagon that his team recently completed an initial capabilities document that is in Marine Corps staffing. He anticipates the document will be under Joint Staff review in FY-16.
MQ-X will be a long-range, long-endurance, persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, vertical-takeoff-and-landing asset. Patton said the platform will conduct strike and electromagnetic warfare missions.
The UAS will be based from an amphibious ship and can also operate from a land base. Patton said the system will be operated by a squadron, but "that's something that is 10 years out at least."
Patton said the long-endurance requirement for MQ-X will begin at 12 hours. "We are just at the very beginning of writing the capabilities on this," he added.
There is not a commercially available solution for MQ-X but the Marine Corps is closely monitoring the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node program. The program envisions using smaller ships as mobile launch and recovery sites for unmanned aircraft.
In May 2014, DARPA and the Office of Naval Research signed a memorandum of agreement making the TERN program a three-phase joint effort. The first two phases focus on preliminary design and risk reduction and the third phase is building a full-scale demonstrator for ground-based testing that culminates in an at-sea launch and recovery demonstration.
"We're optimistically following that program and when they develop the demonstrator, and if it meets our needs the Marine Corps would be a good service to transition that program to," Patton said.
Patton said although the Blackjack UAS operates from a seabase it does not fulfill all of the MQ-X requirements because of its size, strike capability and range. The Blackjack is classified as a Group 3 UAS while the MQ-X will be considered a Group 5 UAS.
Also, the Blackjack supports Marine Expeditionary Units, battalions, regiments and U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations Command, while MQ-X will support squadrons, he added.
