Kacey Roberts
A General Atomics business has secured a $98 million contract from the Department of Defense to prototype autonomous air-to-air missions for fourth and fifth-generation Blue Force fighters to train against “red air” surrogates.
As the lead systems integrator for Project Red 5, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will deploy two of its MQ-20 Avenger unmanned aircraft and provide mission autonomy software that integrates sensors, data links and other advanced systems, the company said Wednesday.
The project is under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense and is run by the Test Resource Management Center.
Jeff Hettick, vice president for agile mission systems at GA-ASI, commented, “We are thrilled to partner with TRMC to bring these capabilities that create operationally relevant Red Air surrogates and significantly improve Blue Force mission success in realistic air-to-air training scenarios.”
