{"id":2662,"date":"2026-05-28T07:58:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T05:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2662"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:01:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T10:01:57","slug":"navy-surveys-industry-for-reusable-uncrewed-test-aircraft-to-develop-air-launched-munitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=2662","title":{"rendered":"US Navy surveys industry for reusable uncrewed test aircraft to develop air-launched munitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Navy aerial weapons experts are surveying the industry for companies able to build a prototype uncrewed test aircraft to accelerate the development of air-launched munitions.<\/p>\n

Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center-China Lake issued a sources-sought notice\u00a0 for the Reusable, Unmanned Developmental Test and Evaluation (DT&E) Platform project.<\/p>\n

The intent to gain knowledge of interest, capabilities and qualifications of industry to explore approaches that support continuous testing cycles that enable fast-paced experimentation.<\/p>\n

Reusable uncrewed aircraft<\/h3>\n

Navy experts are considering an uncrewed\u00a0reusable system to reduce costs and increase test frequency that can carry and release 500-to 1000-pound munitions. Solutions should be affordable, scalable, and flexible enough to integrate new technologies quickly for evaluation in naval aviation flight conditions.<\/p>\n

From industry, Navy experts want responses that describe the system architecture for an uncrewed, reusable system, as well as ground and mission support; integration approach to support several munitions types and instrumentation; and safety and risk management of high-cadence testing.<\/p>\n

Prototype uncrewed\u00a0test aircraft<\/a>\u00a0should have mission support tools sufficient to demonstrate core capability; modular interfaces for munitions integration and data capture; and test plans and metrics for assessing readiness and applicability.<\/p>\n

Rapid turnaround<\/h3>\n

This reusable uncrewed test aircraft should offer rapid turnaround between flights, with plans for maintenance, logistics, and safety-of-flight and ground operations. Also of interest is the technology readiness level of proposed solutions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Navy aerial weapons experts are surveying the industry for companies able to build a prototype uncrewed test aircraft to accelerate the development of air-launched munitions. Officials of the Naval […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30],"tags":[533,71],"class_list":["post-2662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-military-tech","category-naval","tag-reusable-uncrewed-test-aircraft","tag-us-navy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/reusable-uncrewed-test-aircraft.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2662"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3047,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions\/3047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}