Printed from https://fiscalreceipts.com/program/0443/ — built September 26, 2026. Every figure is citation-backed; see the page online for per-number provenance.
MQ-8 UAV
Watch this program
Budget figures
No FY2026 R-1/P-1 request line for this program element. The FY2026 President's Budget request workbook carries no FY2026 line for it; its last workbook figure is FY2024. The PB2026 J-book detail below does carry an FY2026 row for this line, recorded as zero. A workbook blank and a documented zero are different records, and this page shows both. An absent line is not by itself an ending — PB2026 renumbered program elements at scale across the services and defense agencies, so this work may continue under a different number. No successor is linked for this line: this site's program-lineage layer holds no keyed edge pointing forward from here. That is an absence in this site's lineage layer, not a finding about the program: if the J-book narrative on this page describes a realignment, it is quoted below in the document's own words, and this note does not restate it.
FY2026 award data is a partial year — USAspending reports awards on a rolling basis, and this corpus runs through 2026-09-04. why partial FY2026 data? →
Budget trajectory
| Fiscal year | Amount |
|---|---|
| FY24 | $1.55MP-1 TOA · PB2026 |
| FY25 | $0J-book detail · PB2026 |
| FY26 | $0J-book detail · PB2026 |
Decade view
P-1/R-1 workbook TOA basis, shown compact in $B/$M (the workbook records USD thousands); each figure cites its own President's Budget edition
The vertical scale does not start at zero: the baseline sits just below this program’s smallest year, so a low point on this line is not a small amount. Read the shape for direction and the grid below for the figures.
● actuals (line) · ○ enacted · ◇ request — gaps are editions the program is absent from, never interpolated.
| Series | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Actuals | $49.2M | – | $1.55M |
| Enacted | – | $0 | $1.55M |
| Request | – | – | $1.55M |
blank = series not published for this year; – = absent from that edition.
Program lineage
No predecessor/successor lineage was recorded for this program element — no FY-to-FY transfer into or out of this line was stated in the ingested J-books, and none was inferred from the program structure.
Description
Description — MQ-8 UAV
The MQ-8 Unmanned Air System is a Joint Military Intelligence Program. There is no funding requested in FY2026 based on a Navy decision to divest current inventory of MQ-8C Air Vehicles (AVs) and associated equipment. The Navy will divest the MQ-8C Fire Scout Uncrewed Aircraft System at the conclusion of FY 2024. Through coordination with Commander Naval Air Forces, Commander Naval Surface Forces, Naval Air Systems Command and Naval Sea Systems Command, operational employment of the MQ-8C will end in Q4 FY2024 and sundown will be completed by Q4 FY2026. The MQ-8C Fire Scout is a vertical take-off and landing, expeditionary, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capable of day/night ship and shore-based operations. Fire Scout provides an airborne, unmanned, sea-based, persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (ISR-T) asset to the host Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) platform or suitably equipped air capable ships (SEACS) without the reliance on limited joint theater or national assets. The MQ-8C Fire Scout system of systems includes the Mission Control System (MCS), Unmanned Common Aircraft Recovery System (UCARS) (required for shipboard only), and Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL) for MQ-8C command & control and payload data transmission. The program procured a total of 68 (59 procurement and nine (9) RDTEN) air vehicles 30 MQ-8Bs and 38 MQ-8Cs. The program sustains Nineteen 19 MQ-8C Fire Scout Operational air vehicles (17 allocated to Fleet, two (2) allocated to UX24) with no further contract deliveries. 17 MQ-8Cs are in long term preservation located at the Fleet Contractor Field Team (CFT) supported storage and maintenance facility at Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) Pt. Mugu, CA. Two (2) MQ-8Cs were stricken due to attrition. All 30 MQ-8B's have been fully sun downed as of 30 September 2022. A deployed MQ-8 system includes AV(s), payloads (i.e. electro-optical/infrared/laser designator-range finder, Automated Identification System, voice communications relay, Radar, and other specialty payloads), MCS (with TCS and TCDL integrated for interoperability), UCARS for automatic launch and recovery, and associated spares and support equipment. The quantities and schedules for MCS and UCARS components are based on host ship requirements, while quantities and schedules for air vehicle components, support equipment, and training equipment are based on operational deployment plans. A limited number of land-based MCS supplement the shipboard systems to support shore-based operations, such as pre-deployment or acceptance functional check flights. These land-based MCS will also support depot-level maintenance/post-maintenance activities. MQ-8 systems will support missions on LCS and/or suitably-equipped air capable ships and land based MQ-8 requirements. Quantities of air vehicles are derived from LCS and/or suitably-equipped air capable ship deployment requirements for Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and Surface Warfare and Mine Countermeasures mission sets. Future ships supported include FFG.
Justification
Justification — MQ-8 UAV
There is no funding requested in FY2026 based on a Navy decision to divest current inventory of MQ-8C Air Vehicles (AVs) and associated equipment.
Budget line items(workbook-cited)
P-1/R-1 workbook Total Obligation Authority basis (USD thousands) · PB2026.
Exhibit P-1
| Account | Org | Type | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircraft Procurement, Navy | N | FY24 Actuals | $1.55M |
Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)
J-book detail basis (R-2/P-40, USD millions) · PB2026 — a different accounting basis from the P-1/R-1 workbook TOA above; where the two disagree, the reconciliation strip under Budget figures shows both.
Wider than this screen — swipe the table sideways for the remaining fiscal-year columns.
| Project | All Prior Years | FY24 Actuals | FY25 Total | FY26 Base | FY26 Request |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Program Element | $1.43B | $1.55M | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Follow the dollar
Appropriation → program element → top high-confidence awards → recipient families → congressional districts.
Follow-the-dollar covers 312 of 1,938 programs — only high-confidence budget→award links are shown. why coverage is partial? →
The diagram illustrates the cited table below — amounts shown in the diagram are transaction sums per award (no citation chips); the per-district obligations in the table cite USAspending queries.
| District | Program obligations |
|---|---|
| CA-50 | $97.4M |
Related awards
Award linkage is shown for 32 of 200 profiled companies — high- and medium-confidence USAspending matches, each row labeled; medium is the weaker evidence. why partial award coverage? →
| Recipient | PIID | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| BELL TEXTRON INC | N0001918D0119 | high |
| NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS CORPORATION | N0001916C0055 | high |
Contractor concentration
No concentration index is published for this line. This line's high-confidence links do not clear the floor for a published concentration index — at least 3 awards across 2 contractor families holding positive obligations, with positive net linked dollars. An index below that floor is a fact about the sample, not about the market. Whatever further links this line carries are medium-confidence, and what each medium evidence path does and does not establish is set out in the methodology. Both bases are in the downloadable warehouse.
Lobbying mentions
No Senate LDA lobbying filing in the tracked data mentions this program element by code or alias.
Oversight
Department-level designation (not specific to this program)
GAO lists 5 high-risk areas for DOD as a whole. That designation covers the department, not MQ-8 UAV. No program-specific GAO finding for this line is in the ingested data. See the DOD oversight record.
Program dossier
No research dossier for this program — dossiers cover 50 of 1,938 programs, the largest fully J-book-detailed lines by FY2026 requested dollars. why no dossier here? →
Primary sources
Open any budget figure for its exact receipt. Verified line items lead with the highlighted government PDF; original spreadsheets download with their budget edition and exhibit in the filename.
Budget totals · TOA sources
FY2026 Department of Defense Budget: Procurement Programs (P-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit P-1 · O342
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2026_DoD_P-1_Procurement.xlsx.
FY2024 Department of Defense Budget: Procurement Programs (P-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit P-1 · O345
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2024_DoD_P-1_Procurement.xlsx.
FY2025 Department of Defense Budget: Procurement Programs (P-1) · comptroller.war.gov
Exhibit P-1 · Q346
Complete workbook · unchanged saved copy. Saves as PB2025_DoD_P-1_Procurement.xlsx.
Detailed budget justification
The related TOA spreadsheets above use a different accounting basis from R-2/P-40 detail. Their amounts are not assumed to match these detailed sources.