The USS Theodore Roosevelt is now the first Navy carrier to be equipped with an Unmanned Air Warfare Center that will support the Boeing-made MQ-25A, the first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft.
In May, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao announced during a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing that the MQ-25A was moving into the low-rate initial production and deployment phase.
The aircraft is intended to relieve the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets of the aerial refueling role, freeing up F/A-18E/F aircraft to focus on strike missions.
The memo, dated April 21, 2026, was recently published by the Pentagon within a Modernized Selected Acquisition Report. It was first reported by The War Zone.
The report notes that in March 2026, the USS Theodore Roosevelt Unmanned Air Warfare Center “became the first fully operational/deployable MQ-25 capable aircraft carrier,” with another UAWC aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan slated “to be operational/deployable at the end of [August] 2026.”
The Nimitz-class carrier USS George H.W. Bush was the first aircraft carrier on which the UAWC was installed and tested back in August 2024.
According to the Navy, the integrated Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System and the MD-5E Ground Control Station are the systems required for the MQ-25 air vehicle command and control — and are critical to the unmanned aircraft refueler’s operations.
In May, the Stingray reached milestone C, which in the defense acquisition process authorizes a program to transition from the engineering and manufacturing development, or EMD, phase into production and deployment, a process that in this instance has been nearly eight years in the making.
Inked in 2018, the $805 million Boeing-Navy contract covered the design, development, fabrication, test and delivery of four Stingray aircraft, a program that the service at the time estimated would cost about $13 billion for 72 aircraft, according to previous Military Times coverage.
Despite its first test flight running a year later than previously planned, on April 25 the Stingray inched closer to operability after completing an approximately two-hour flight around Mascoutah, Illinois.
With the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the fold and able to support MQ-25 operations, deploying the unmanned refueling drone is seemingly only a matter of time.
Claire Barrett is an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times. She is also a World War II researcher with an unparalleled affinity for Sir Winston Churchill and Michigan football.
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