. has announced that it has delivered and flown one of two Integrator Unmanned Aircraft Systems that will provide the U.S. Marine Corps an early operational capability for the Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) programme.
“The Integrator system delivery at Twentynine Palms, just less than a year-and-a-half post-contract award, is a reflection of our commitment to STUAS and our commitment to the U.S. Marine Corps,” said Insitu Senior Vice President of Integrator Programs Bill Clark. “We continue to be grateful for the opportunity to support the warfighter with cost-effective and ever-increasing ISR capability.”
The STUAS programme was awarded to Insitu for its Integrator UAS in July 2010 to provide persistent maritime and land-based tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data collection and dissemination capabilities to the warfighter. Just six months after contract award, the first operational assessment was completed and the Marine Corps elected to obtain an early operational capability.
The Marines are acquiring the first system through a Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) business arrangement. The Marines will own the system at Twentynine Palms while Insitu Field Service Representatives (FSRs), who have accumulated more than 575,000 combat flight hours with the ScanEagle UAS, will operate and maintain it.
“The Marine Corps was in a position to take advantage of the Early Operational Capability (EOC) of the Insitu Integrator UAS that was demonstrated during our initial operational assessment at Yuma Proving Grounds in January and February 2011. This EOC system at Twentynine Palms will optimize the predeployment training and exercises for the Marines prior to their arrival in OEF or any other AOR. We also have the additional benefit of being able to capture flight/system data, Reliability, Maintainability, and Availability (RMA) data, feeding that knowledge quickly back into the development of RQ-21A Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) Program of Record (POR). Along with providing our Marines the optimal training prior to deployment, this will reduce risk on the STUAS program,” said COL James Rector, U.S.Marine Corps, PMA-263 Program Manager.
A second system was delivered to NAVAIR earlier this month.
As the early operational capability exercises progress, the U.S. Marine Corps will continue to collaborate with Insitu on the development of the Integrator-variant, designated RQ-21A, which is on track for delivery in 2013. The team is building hardware to support flight testing, which will culminate in a second Operational Assessment (OA-2) at the end of 2012.
Each Integrator early operational UAS includes four Integrator aircraft, a ground control station, a launch system and a recovery system, representing the latest advancements from many of today’s industry leaders. Quatro Composites manufactured the aircraft structures that contain Rockwell Collins’ flight computer and the Propulsion Module Unit (PMU) which was built, tested and certified by Northwest (NW) Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) Propulsion Systems. The PMU also incorporates several NW UAV components, including its low-noise muffler system. Each aircraft carries Harris Corporation’s UHF/VHF communications relay payload, Hood Technology Corporation’s multi-function ball turret and the L3 Communications-West Bandit Digital Data Link. Command and control from the Insitu ground control station is provided through FreeWave Technologies.
Source: Press Release