Northrop Grumman was awarded a contract to conduct a maritime airborne sensor demonstration using a company owned MQ-8B Fire Scout tactical Vertical Unmanned Aircraft System (VUAS) by ABS Group, a Systems Engineering Technical Assistance (SETA) contractor for the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center. The test will take place in the Chesapeake Bay conducted from the Naval Air Station at Patuxent River, Md, Webster Outlying Field, the company said. The test will be used to verify and validate ship deployed UAS aircraft and payload capabilities; during the test, Fire Scout will use the U.S. Navy baseline payload, the FLIR Systems BriteStar II electro-optical/infrared/laser designator range finder (EO/IR/LDRF) payload. The radar will be an off-the-shelf Telephonics 1700B search, surveillance, tracking and imaging radar system, which was integrated on Fire Scout under an internal research and development cooperative funding program between Northrop Grumman and Telephonics in early 2008. The test is scheduled to occur in fall 2009.