After months of deliberation, the name and designation of the Navy’s first carrier unmanned aerial vehicle are now official: MQ-25A Stingray, service officials told USNI News this week.
Approved following a lengthy U.S. Air Force Material Command process for not only for the official “designation” (MQ-25A) but also the “popular name” (Stingray), the service can now have an official title for the unmanned aerial vehicle that’s had several labels since late last year. The word came to the Navy via a July 11 memo from the Air Force.
(Technically, as of Friday, the designation is ZMQ-25A until a contract is awarded for the airframe when the Stingray will shed the Z).
The final name is an indication of marked changes in the character of the program for the aircraft that the service hopes will launch from catapults and recover with arresting wires in the next several years.
In 2006 the program was conceived as a low observable lethal, and deep penetrating strike platform (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle), as outlined in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.
In 2011 the tenor of the program changed again with additional influence from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the less stealthy and lightly armed Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program that could serve as a stopgap for counter-terrorism operations if the U.S. lost their UAV bases in Afghanistan.
