US Navy UCLASS Spending Restricted by Congress

The 2015 compromise defense bill places, released on Wednesday, imposes restrictions on funding for the Navy’s planned production carrier-launched unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over concerns the platform would lack sufficient stealth, survivability and weapons payload, according to the bill’s language.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would restrict Navy spending on the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program until the completion of a Pentagon review of its entire information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) portfolio and those results were reported back to Congress.

The Navy’s FY 2015 budget submission included $403 million to further develop the UCLASS program.

The bill — which is expected to pass both the Senate and the House — also directs the Secretary of the Navy to submit a report to Congress on how the Navy decided on the most recently stated set of requirements for UCLASS through the prism of the emerging anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) threats the military has touted as a dangerous limitation to U.S. forces and future capabilities of a carrier strike group (CSG) in 2030.

The study — to be included in the FY 2017 budget submission — will require the Navy to outline its plan for how the UCLASS would work with the Navy’s EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, the F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the planned next generation F/A-XX naval fighter.

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