The first photo of the new Northrop Grumman XRQ-73 stealth drone X-plane has just been released.
The plane, which is slated to start flying by the end of the calendar year, is a Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiRcraft Demonstration (SHEPARD) that was built of the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), per the governmental agency. It did not disclose how much it cost but it is being made for an “urgent operational need.”
The Pentagon’s latest ‘X’ plane is being built by Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites for DARPA’s X-Prime program.
The DARPA team consists of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and “warfighters.”
Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Aeronautics Systems sector in Redondo Beach, California, was the primary contractor for the weapon.
The XRQ-73 aircraft is a Group 3 UAS, weighing approximately 1,250 pounds.
