General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) has been awarded a USD 98 million (EUR 90.6 million) contract as lead systems integrator for a US Department of Defense (DoD) adversary training project, the company announced on 31 July 2024.
Known as Project Red 5, the work, which is run by the US DoD’s Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), will prototype advanced autonomous air-to-air capabilities to provide adversary or ‘Red Air’ training profiles.
GA-ASI will operate two of its company-owned MQ-20 Avenger unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and provide mission autonomy software that integrates cutting-edge sensors, datalinks and other advanced mission systems. Project Red 5 will prototype full-profile autonomous air-to-air missions to enable current fourth- and fifth-generation ‘Blue Force’ fighters to train against robust, autonomous ‘red air’ surrogate platforms.
“GA-ASI has continued to invest and deploy our open-architecture autonomy ecosystem integrated with best-of-breed mission systems,” Jeff Hettick, GA-ASI vice president for Agile Mission Systems, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “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.”
Project Red 5 will complement GA-ASI’s continued work on unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) initiatives, which includes autonomy and mission system tests on MQ-20 Avengers, the XQ-67A developmental UCAV produced by GA-ASI for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and prototype production and flight testing for the US Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme.
