US Defense Department has clarified that the recently announced $15 million contract for 2 UAV XQ-58A VALKYRIE awarded by the US Navy to Kratos company, has actually been made for the Marines who plan to conduct experiments with the large Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

In accordance with the system presentation provided by the Kratos president, Steve Fendley, the VALKYRIE project aims to offer a pretty dynamic platform and capability set to use in the tactical arena at an affordable price level. This is what raised the interest of the USAF first, and then the Marines, the latter still scoping to possible options for new strike, intelligence gathering, and electronic warfare capabilities as well as a “mothership” for small drones, in support of their new EABO (Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations) and littoral maneuver concepts. Despite the silence of the DOD regarding the USMC project, it is also assumed that this future capability should be able to deploy from amphibious ships and hasty bases ashore. In detail, the contract was awarded by Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, on behalf of the Marine Corps, with the collaboration of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Considering its size, weighing in at around 6,000 pounds (2,721 kg) with a roughly 27-foot-wingspan (8,2 m), the XQ-58A, will be inserted in the Pentagon’s “group 5” category of unmanned aircraft (the largest the DoD uses).

The new UAV would allow the Marine Corps, and the Navy, to reach the 1,500-3,000 nautical miles range and support the amphibious/littoral force with EW, ISTAR, and strike (by Small Diameter Bomb) missions. As anticipated, it will also be capable of acting as a “mothership” for smaller aerial drones and deploying them mid-flight. Kratos company is also trying to transform the VALKYRIE into a communications relay, equipped with a special gateway payload that will allow 5/6 Generation aircraft, to communicate and data link with each other using the unmanned platform (project Hydra). Despite the leak of the latter project, Steve Fendley underlined that the ability to swap out various mission kits is the real force multiplayer of the VALKYRIE and part of the interest from the Navy and Marines. In the initial phase of the experimentation, the Department of the Navy team will also have the possibility to access the data collected by the USAF which is flying the new UAV out of the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida since November 2022.

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