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By Amy Butler
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is planning to begin integrating specialized mapping sensors onto two General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' Predator B unmanned aerial vehicles within a year, and officials are expecting those experiments will grow into an operational fleet in the future.
GAAS has produced two prototype Predator B UAVs; the B is a more powerful version of the earlier Predator. The Predator B can reach up to 50,000 feet in altitude and can stay on station for a day or more without refueling, depending on payload weight. Those qualities make the platform attractive to NGA officials who are attempting to plan a way to provide the most specific terrain elevation data to soldiers possible.
Rob Zitz, who leads the agency's director's initiatives group, said during a Dec. 22 interview with Defense Daily that officials are "optimistic" they will have the UAVs in hand by this time next year to begin sensor integration and start operating the vehicles. Integrating the preferred sensors onto Predator is a "low to medium risk," Zitz said, adding that integration and initial tests would take place within a year of delivery. Zitz said he was unsure whether the agency would receive the prototypes already in existence or...