Page 10 - Aerotech News and Review March 3 2017

Northrop begins flight tests of the MS-177 multi-spectral sensor on RQ-4 Global Hawk
Northrop Grumman has begun flight testing of the MS-177 sensor payload with a successful inaugural flight on an RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude long endurance autonomous aircraft system.
The flight tests mark the first time the sensor has been flown on a high altitude long-range autonomous aircraft and extend the mission capabilities of the sys- tem. The MS-177 sensor is designed to provide capabilities to not only “find” targets using broad area search and different sensing technologies, but to also fix, track, and assess targets through its agility and multiple sensing modalities.
The MS-177 testing is expected to continue through the first half of 2017. The successful flight test at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., facility fol- lows the demonstrations of two sensors previously unavailable on the Global Hawk. Northrop Grumman successfully flew a SYERS-2 intelligence gathering sensor in February 2016 and has recently completed flight tests of the Optical Bar Camera.
“The MS-177 is the new benchmark in imaging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] sensors and its integration into the Global Hawk platform expands the mission capability we can provide,” said Mick Jaggers, vice president and program manager, Global Hawk program, Northrop Grum- man. “This successful flight is another milestone in an aggressive effort to demonstrate Global Hawk’s versatility and effectiveness in carrying a variety of sensor payloads and support establishing OMS compliancy.”
The Global Hawk system is the premier provider of persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information. Able to fly at high altitudes for greater than 30 hours, Global Hawk is designed to gather near-real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas of land in all types of weather – day or night. In active operation with the U.S. Air Force since 2001, Global Hawk has amassed more than 200,000 flight hours with missions flown in support of military and humanitarian operations.
Northrop Grumman photograph
Northrop Grumman has begun flight testing of the MS-177 sensor payload with a successful inaugural flight on an RQ-4 Global Hawk high altitude long endurance autonomous aircraft system.
DOD officials discuss future vertical lift ‘family of systems’
by Karen Parrish
DOD News
The future of rotary-wing or verti- cal lift aircraft across the services is the focus of a Defense Department initiative that seeks to improve the speed, range, refueling and interop- erability capabilities across the mili- tary services, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Coast Guard, and was the subject of a discussion today at the Center for Strategic and Inter- national Studies in Washington, D.C.
Jose Gonzalez is acting deputy as- sistant secretary of defense for tactical warfare systems. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. H. Stacy Clardy is J8 deputy di- rector for force management, appli- cation and support on the Joint Staff. Both took part in the CSIS panel.
Andrew Philip Hunter, director of the center’s Defense Industrial Initia- tives Group and senior fellow of the International Security Program, mod- erated the session.
Designing a ‘family” of vertical lift systems
“We recognized, early on, that this was going to be ... a family of capa- bilities,” Gonzalez said. The family might include multiple-role aircraft, joint aircraft and service-specific models, he added.
Critical to the effort, he said, is identifying the missions and capa- bilities each service needs, as well as cross-service uses for vertical lift.
The Army, Marine Corps, and So- com are “driving and leading an anal- ysis of alternatives,” Gonzalez added.
While the United States has world- class vertical lift capabilities today, many of the aircraft in the inventory
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have reached their performance and design limits, he said.
“Life-cycle costs have become unsustainable,” Gonzalez said. “And we’re too slow, and it’s too expensive to upgrade those systems.”
The message Gonzalez said he wants to deliver is: “In vertical lift, in this community, we’re lucky if we get a chance every 50 years to do this, to upgrade the capability.”
Most of the rotary-wing aircraft now in use date back to 1970s design, he noted, so the ongoing “future fam- ily” effort is a case of needing to “do it and get it right.”
That comes down to four factors, he said: a deliberate, disciplined, pa- tient and collaborative approach.
“We could rush, but we’re not going to rush,” Gonzalez said. “ ... We’re going to get one shot at doing this and we want to get it right.”
Risks, opportunities
Gonzalez said changing threats and priorities, along with available resources, will affect plans as the project advances.
“The opportunities are in using ver- tical lift to do things that we haven’t even really thought about doing with them,” he said. “The opportunity there is, as we do this analysis, is to see what is the art of the possible. How can we use these aircraft in new and novel ways?”
Clardy said of the many large pro- grams he’s involved with across the services, “I don’t see any that are structured the way this one is. ... I’m very impressed by the people who are involved directly, whether it be indus- try, within the Joint Staff, certainly within [the office of the Secretary of
Marine Corps photograph by Lance Cpl. Brandon Maldonado
MV-22 Ospreys approach a landing zone during a training exercise conducted in Djibouti, Jan. 10, 2017. Ospreys have the ability to transport Marines and sailors quickly to the battlefield due to their ability to tilt their rotors horizontally and fly like an airplane. The Ospreys and crew are with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 163 (Reinforced), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Defense], and their interest in making this successful.”
Clardy said he believes there’s “a potential for a revolution, a revolu- tionary way in which we employ ver- tical lift with this. I ... could not de- fine that right now, but with this type
of potential for a technology leap, potentially then you have the option ... to make a change in how we look at vertical lift, and how it’s employed with the ground force.”
One challenge, Clardy said, is to sustain effort and energy in pursuing
the future family of vertical lift sys- tems.
“I see a lot of stick-to-it-iveness with this [project.],” he said. “ ... We will have challenges and ... friction. We just have to be willing to over- come that friction.”
March 3, 2017
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