Derrick Henry
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. has conducted flight tests for the U.S. Army’s Gray Eagle Extended Range, or GE-ER, unmanned aircraft system using a proliferated low Earth orbit satellite constellation for communications.
The GE-ER flights tested the aircraft’s critical operations, such as core control functions and sensor and communications systems, GA-ASI said Wednesday. More tests are scheduled to demonstrate how the UAS will behave across a full flight regime.
Testing Gray Eagle’s Survivability
According to Don Cattell, vice president of Army programs at GA-ASI, the GE-ER flight experiments are practicing rapid integration to prove the platform’s survivability and mission success in multi-domain operations. “The PLEO integration and flight testing continue to show that the current GE-ER open architecture is real,” he added.
Modular Open Systems Approach
Built on a modular open systems approach, or MOSA, design, the Gray Eagle UAS features plug-and-play capabilities to ensure that the platform can address evolving threats. The aircraft’s open architecture accommodates new capabilities, provides resilience to electronic threats and supports expeditionary deployment to austere environments.
The MOSA design approach enables ready integration of the PLEO constellation without major technical efforts, allowing new capabilities to be fielded quickly. GE 25M, a variant of the UAS, can operate across the globe and features longer-range sensors, anti-jam navigation and expeditionary ground control systems, making it the Army’s most survivable unmanned aircraft.
In addition, Gray Eagle is the only Army UAS that utilizes geostationary Earth orbit, low Earth orbit and PLEO constellations for secure, inflight adaptable and resilient communication, navigation and data management.
