The U.S. Navy's planned unmanned plane for use on aircraft carriers should eventually be able to take on additional roles besides just surveillance, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said on Wednesday.
The Navy last week said it had delayed this month's planned kickoff of a competition for the new carrier-based unmanned spy plane, citing affordability concerns and a Pentagon-wide review of intelligence and surveillance programs.
Mabus addressed the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance Strike (UCLASS) program during the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit, but stopped short of calling the delay a setback for the program.
"It's going through a process at (the Office of the Secretary of Defense) to take a broader look at programs," he said, adding that decisions about the program's future would likely be included in the Pentagon's fiscal 2016 budget request.
Companies interested in the competition include Northrop Grumman Corp, maker of the X-47B unmanned, unarmed plane that has already been tested on U.S. carriers, Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin Corp, and privately held General Atomics, which builds the popular Predator unmanned planes used by the U.S. Air Force and other government agencies.
Congress has been debating what the range and armaments should be for the Navy's next-generation unmanned plane.
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