Air Force to buy Raytheon multispectral UAV sensor payloads for Reaper hunter-killer drone

U.S. Air Force airborne sensors experts announced their intention last week to buy as many as 49 MST-B multispectral targeting systems from the Raytheon Co. for the MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Raytheon’s MTS-B multispectral targeting system provides electro-optical, infrared, laser designation, and laser illumination capabilities for the Reaper armed drone that are integrated into one sensor package.

Officials of the Medium Altitude Unmanned Aircraft System Division of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, say they intend to award a sole-source contract to the Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems segment in McKinney, Texas, for the MTS-B electro-optical UAV sensor payloads.

From Raytheon the Air Force will buy as many as 49 MTS-B turret units, turret containers,high-definition electronics units (HDEU), HDEU containers, and spare parts. The value of the upcoming contract has yet to be negotiated.

A multispectral sensor captures image data at specific frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum, and separates the wavelengths to enable extraction of additional information the human eye fails to capture with its receptors for red, green and blue.