On 10 July 2024 Northrop Grumman released a photo of the Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiRcraft Demonstration (SHEPARD) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) it has built for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Built in collaboration with Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, the SHEPARD is a DARPA ‘X-prime’ programme leveraging hybrid-electric architecture and component technologies to quickly mature a new mission-focused aircraft design.
The programme leverages the series hybrid-electric architecture and some of the component technologies from the earlier Air Force Research Laboratory/Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Great Horned Owl project. The SHEPARD hybrid-electric-powered UAV received the official X-plane designation XRQ-73 from DARPA in June.
“The idea behind a DARPA X-prime programme is to take emerging technologies and burn down system-level integration risks to quickly mature a new missionised, long-endurance aircraft design that can be fielded quickly,” Steve Komadina, SHEPARD programme manager, explained in a 24 June 2024 DARPA press release. “The SHEPARD programme is maturing a specific propulsion architecture and power class as an exemplar of potential benefits for the Department of Defense.”
The XRQ-73 will be a Group 3 UAV weighing approximately 567 kg. Its first flight is expected by the end of 2024.
