NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are reviewing industry proposals to continue the “Close Range” program, in which companies deploy and maintain small unmanned aircraft systems to supplement military surveillance assets.
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) plans to award multiple five-year contracts by fall, said Marine Col. Eldon Metzger, program manager for Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS.
The upcoming contracts will be similar to the previous five-year contracts, which have run out. They will call for an endurance of up to about 10 hours and will mainly provide full-motion video. The old contracts cover the Boeing-Insitu [BA] ScanEagle, the PAE Resolute Eagle and Textron’s [TXT] Aerosonde.
The program is called “Close Range” because it is designed to ease the burden on larger ISR aircraft. It began in about 2003 to support U.S. operations in Iraq and has been expanded and extended since then.
Meanwhile, Metzger’s program office, which issued a request for information in January for air-launched small UAS, continues to review responses to the RFI, the colonel told Defense Daily after speaking at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition. The concept has already been demonstrated by launching an undisclosed UAS from a tube aboard a V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.