The MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system completes its first flight May 22, 2013, from the Northrop Grumman manufacturing facility in Palmdale, Calif. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman by Daniel Perales/Released)
WASHINGTON — Off the heels of successfully adding information warfare sailors to both Amphibious Readiness Groups and two submarines, the US Navy’s top information warfare officer is now eyeing an expansion of her community’s role in the service’s MQ-4 Triton program.
“What we’re examining is whether our initial concept for [Triton] is sufficient because we were going to have a more junior sailor and a single operator,” Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, commander of naval information forces, told reporters last week at West 2023. Now, “we’re talking about the fact that with the amount of data that we may potentially collect, and how we might want to use it, that we might need a mission manager.”
MQ-4 Triton is a high-altitude, long endurance unmanned aircraft, built by Northrop Grumman, and used by the Navy as a surveillance aircraft.
As a type commander, Aeschbach is the most senior operational IW officer in the Navy. Her community, while not new to the Pentagon in terms of what it brings to a fight, is one of the youngest in terms of its formal establishment. IW is a combination of communications, intelligence, cyberspace and electronic warfare capabilities that are collectively employed to do two things: ensure the US commander has the best information available, and to cloud or confuse an adversary’s assessment of the battlespace.
The three-star type commander said a certa ..
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