The Coast Guard this week issued a Request for Proposals for a new contract to provide contractor-owned and operated unmanned aircraft system (UAS) services aboard its larger cutters.
The Maritime UAS services contract will replace one the Coast Guard currently has with Boeing’s [BA] Insitu business unit, which provides and operates its ScanEagle UAS systems aboard the service’s fleet of 420-foot high-endurance national security cutters (NSCs).
The MUAS contract would include the NSCs and possibly expand the UAS services to legacy medium-endurance cutters, and potentially the future 360-foot medium-endurance offshore patrol cutter (OPC), and the polar security cutter (OPC). The first of 25 planned OPCs is expected to be delivered in late 2024 and delivery of the first of at least three PSCs is unclear but will occur in 2027 at the earliest.
Bids for the MUAS award are due by Jan. 11, 2024. Insitu’s current option expires June 5, 2024, although the Coast Guard could award the company and additional option year for the UAS services.
The MUAS solicitation seeks Group 2 and 3 solutions. Group 2 UAS have a gross take-off weight between 21 and 55 pounds and Group 3 systems weigh less than 1,320 pounds. ScanEagle is a Group 2 UAS.
The Coast Guard has experimented with a Group 3 UAS. In 2020, the service’s 270-foot medium-endurance cutter Harriet Lane operated with a Shield AI V-BAT, a UAS that takes off and lands vertically but flies horizontally like a fixed-wing aircraft.
The Coast Guard uses the UAS services to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks. The service wants the MUAS services for day and night operations, seven days a week, with durations of at least 12 hours of continuous flight time. Sensors aboard the aircraft will provide data and imagery for surveillance, detection, classification, and identification for all host cutters and manned aircraft that can received the data.