The Marine Corps accomplished its first test flight Tuesday of a robotic aircraft that would get downed in battle without taking a giant chunk out of the service’s budget.
The service received the primary of two XQ-58A Valkyrie drones in March as a part of its efforts to develop lower-cost unmanned systems, in accordance with a Marine news release Thursday.
The test flight Tuesday was an early step toward getting the robot aircraft able to fly in support of Marine Corps missions.
“The aircraft performed as expected,” the Corps said, without providing additional details in regards to the results of the flight.
Video of the flight posted by the Marine Corps on Thursday shows the uncrewed jet, which doesn’t require a runway, take off at Eglin Air Force Base on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Within the video, the drone emits a fiery-colored plume because it creeps upward at an angle.
The Valkyrie — which clocks in at roughly $6.5 million, in accordance with the manufacturer — may very well be a comparatively low-cost way for the Marine Corps to construct out its inventory of uncrewed aircraft. In contrast, General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper drone, designed for surveillance, costs roughly $38 million, in accordance with a Pentagon budget document.
The value tag and lack of crew would make the 30-foot-long Valkyrie “attritable,” in Pentagon lingo, meaning it will be OK with the military if the aircraft were downed in combat after just a few missions, in accordance with Air Force informational materials.
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The long-range drone is very autonomous, in accordance with the Marine Corps. In other words, greater than being simply uncrewed, the Valkyrie will be flown by artificial intelligence and requires minimal help from a human pilot.
The Valkyrie could fly in quite a lot of missions that crewed aircraft would otherwise complete, in accordance with the Air Force, and will function a wingman to a conventional crewed aircraft.
The Marine Corps is engaged in a wide-ranging overhaul, called Force Design 2030, in an effort to arrange for conflict with a strong, technologically capable military, especially China’s. That effort involves getting robots and drones into the hands of Marines, and training Marines to operate them.
The test flight Tuesday occurred as a part of the Marine Corps’ Penetrating Reasonably priced Autonomous Collaborative Killer – Portfolio program, in accordance with the news release. The Corps is partnering with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Naval Air Systems Command and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division on the Valkyrie.
In Norse mythology, a Valkyrie is a supernatural maiden who selects those to be slain in battle and brought to Valhalla, where those slain warriors reside. The manufacturer of the XQ-58A Valkyrie is the U.S. technology company Kratos, which takes its name from the personification of strength and power in Greek mythology.
The test flight Tuesday wasn’t the primary overall for the Valkyrie drone. The Air Force, whose research laboratory developed the aircraft in partnership with Kratos, conducted the inaugural test flight in March 2019.
However the Corps’ test flight of the Valkyrie is a way for the service to find out what it requires from the drone, in accordance with the news release.
The Marine Corps’ six planned test flights with the Valkyrie will evaluate facets of the drone that include its ability to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions and the potential for it to function a robotic wingman, in accordance with the discharge.
Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the coed newspaper.