U.S. Navy Awards Boeing $80 Million Contract to Develop New MQ-25A Stingray Configurations

The U.S. Navy has awarded Boeing a contract worth up to $80 million to develop and integrate new aircraft configurations for the MQ-25A Stingray unmanned carrier-based tanker, only a month after the program was cleared to move into low rate initial production. The Department of War announced the sole-source indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract on October 16, with Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River, Maryland, acting as the contracting activity and work to be performed at Boeing’s St. Louis facility until October 2031. No funds were obligated at the time of the award, with money instead to be committed through individual orders as the Navy issues them. The contract highlights that the Stingray’s design is still being refined more than eight years after Boeing won the program, with the service now paying both to build the first production aircraft and to keep developing their configuration.

The award, described by the Pentagon as a cost-plus-fixed-fee and cost-no-fee arrangement covering system improvements, production readiness and sustainment, follows the Navy’s announcement on September 14 of a $562 million Lot 1 contract for three production aircraft, which was accompanied by long-lead funding for a second lot planned for 2027. Boeing stated that the order brought the number of Stingray airframes under contract to 14, including four engineering development model aircraft, five system demonstration test articles and two ground test articles. The first production-representative MQ-25A made an approximately two-hour maiden flight from MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois, on April 25, with Rear Admiral Tony Rossi, who heads the Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, stating: “The MQ-25A is not just an aircraft: it’s the first step in integrating unmanned aerial refueling onto the carrier deck, directly enabling our manned fighters to fly further and faster.”

The program has suffered considerable delays, with initial operational capability originally scheduled for 2024 and now expected only in fiscal year 2029 according to Navy budget documents released in April, while the fiscal year 2027 request funds just three aircraft against a planned fleet of 76. The Navy defines that milestone as three Stingrays with trained crews ready to deploy aboard a carrier modified to operate them. The Stingray is intended to relieve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets of the tanking sorties they currently fly for the carrier air wing, extending the reach of fighters such as the F-35C, which recently landed aboard the Ford class for the first time. Unmanned aircraft are being brought into American air combat at a growing pace, with the U.S. Air Force having already flown a YFQ-44A Fury under the control of a pilot in an F-22 fighter.

Boeing won the program in August 2018 with an $805.3 million contract for the first four aircraft, beating competing bids from Lockheed Martin and General Atomics. Its company-owned T1 test aircraft refuelled a Super Hornet in June 2021, an E-2D Hawkeye in August and an F-35C on September 13 that year, before conducting deck handling trials aboard the carrier USS George H.W. Bush in December 2021. Powered by a single Rolls-Royce AE 3007N turbofan, the Stingray is required to deliver around 15,000 pounds of fuel to receiving aircraft at a distance of 500 nautical miles from its carrier.