MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS fielding the AN/AAS-53 Common Sensor Payload (CSP) under the nose. (US Army)
US Army officials are expecting deliveries of the newest variant of the service's Common Sensor Payload (CSP), equipped with advanced targeting capability, to start by June 2025.
“In seven months or so, they should be arriving to the government”, at a rate of two sensor platforms per month, said Doug Haskin, product manager for aerial enhanced radars, optics, and sensors with the army's Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) directorate.
The CSP is currently fielded aboard the army's MC-1C Grey Eagle medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
Prototypes of the V3 variant were delivered to the army by prime contractor Raytheon in December 2023, with service-led testing and evaluation (T&E) taking place during spring 2024, Haskin said during a 3 December roundtable at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The prototypes underwent four weeks of T&E exercises at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
“All the test objectives were completed ... and the results indicated that performance was where it needed to be,” Haskin said of the prototype trials.
CSP V1, which fields the standard definition variant of the platform's infrared sensor, hit initial operating capability in 2011, according to Haskin. CSP V2, which saw an upgrade from standard definition to high definition, have replaced all V1 variants in the army arsenal, he added. Part of the CSP V3 development effort was designed to address “some subcomponent obsolescence” in the current V2 variant, Haskin said.
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