Valkyrie: This Stealthy AI Drone Could Be the Military’s Next Weapon | Wall Street Journal 63,846 views Oct 7, 2023 #Valkyrie #Weapons

 

63,846 views Oct 7, 2023 #Valkyrie #Weapons #WSJ

The Valkyrie XQ-58A is a combat drone designed to deliver weapons or assist fighter jets — using artificial intelligence. The prototype has been in development for years and is able to travel 3,000 miles at an altitude of up to 45,000 ft. Experts now say this unmanned vehicle could play a role in a multi-billion-dollar U.S. military effort to use AI to expand its assets to keep up with increasingly advanced adversaries like China.

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06 October 2023

Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer-Portfolio: Stealthy Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie Drones are completely runway-independent design

1. The War Zone

XQ-58 Valkyrie Is Now Flying With The Marine Corps

Marine tests of XQ-58s as reconnaissance, electronic warfare and loyal wingmen platforms, will inform the service’s future drone ambitions.

BYJOSEPH TREVITHICK|PUBLISHED OCT 5, 2023 8:55 PM EDT

THE WAR ZONE

The U.S. Marine Corps has begun flying its stealthy Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie drones, making it the second known operator of the type beyond the U.S. Air Force. The Marines now plan to evaluate the drones as highly autonomous surveillance and reconnaissance assets, electronic warfare platforms, and wingmen for crewed fighters, including in kinetic roles.

The first flight of a Marine XQ-58 took place on October 3, the service announced today. The drone was launched from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The test flight was conducted in cooperation with the Air Force's 40th Flight Test Squadron, part of the 96th Test Wing at Eglin, and the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), part of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, or OUSD(R&E), has also been involved in the Marine Valkyrie program.

As can be seen in the video above, the XQ-58 is a completely runway-independent design that uses a rocket-assisted takeoff method via a static ground-based launcher. The drone uses a parachute recovery system to get back on the ground, with inflatable airbags helping to cushion it when it touches down.

According to Kratos, the XQ-58, with its 30-foot overall length and 27-foot wingspan, has a maximum range of around 3,000 miles and a maximum launch weight of 6,500 pounds (including up to 600 pounds in its internal payload bay and/or another 600 pounds under the wings). It has a subsonic cruising speed of Mach 0.72 and can hit an absolute top speed of around Mach 0.85.

"This XQ-58A test flight and the data collected ... not only help to inform future requirements for the Marine Corps," Scott Bey, a prototyping and experimentation portfolio manager at OUSD(R&E), said in a statement about the October 3 sortie. “It fuels continued joint innovation and experimentation opportunities and demonstrates the agility that can be achieved through partnership.”

The 40th Flight Test Squadron had already been operating Valkyries from Eglin, primarily to support the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven autonomous flight systems, since its receiving its first examples last year. The Air Force oversaw the type's first ever flight back in 2019.

NAVAIR finalized a contract in January with Kratos to buy the pair of Valkyries on behalf of the Marine Corps in support of a program called the Penetrating Affordable Autonomous Collaborative Killer-Portfolio (PAACK-P). 

• The Marine Corps currently expects PAACK-P to feed into the Tactical Aircraft (TACAIR) component of its larger Marine Air-Ground Task Force Unmanned Aerial System Expeditionary drone program, or MUX.
• The Marines took delivery of the first of two XQ-58s in March, according to a press release the service put out today. Based on modex numbers, the service received the second one sometime after that.
• A video and a pair of pictures the Marine Corps released from the October 3 test flight, seen at the top of this story and below, show a Valkyrie the modex number 107.

One of the US Marine Corps' two XQ-58A Valkyrie drones flies together with a US Air Force F-16C Viper fighter on October 3, 2023. USAF

Additional pictures from the 2023 Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Airshow last month, like the one below, show the other Marine XQ-58, which has the modex number 109.

USMC

The Marine Corps has at least six more test flights already planned for its XQ-58s as part of PAACK-P.

These flight tests have "objectives that include evaluating the platform’s ability to support a variety of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions; the effectiveness of autonomous electronic support to crewed platforms; the potential for AI [artificial intelligence]-enabled platforms to augment combat air patrols; and continuing to mature other manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capability objectives," according to the Marine Corps' press release.

Whether or not any of this testing will involve the release of weapons or other stores is unknown. However, the Marine Valkyrie at the 2023 Miramar Airshow was on display alongside a pair of inert AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and an inert 500-pound-class Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) precision-guided bomb, as can be seen in the social media post below.

Earlier this year, Kratos' President and CEO Eric DeMarco disclosed that the Valkyrie's ability to fly electronic warfare missions alongside stealthy crewed F-35 Joint Strike Fighters was a key area of interest to the Marines.

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