Raytheon reported a third deployment of its unusual Coyote UAS onboard a P-3 Orion weather reconnaissance aircraft of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Coyote is launched from a sonobuoy or similar tube and has a pop-out pusher propeller, control surfaces and datalink antenna. Raytheon says that it can fulfill a variety of military missions “when the job is too risky for manned aircraft.”

For the NOAA, the Coyote will gather and transmit data from within Atlantic hurricanes. The P-3 deploys traditional weather instruments by parachute, which can briefly measure windspeed, humidity and so on as they descend to the ocean surface. But Coyote can fly for up to an hour and 50 miles away from its host aircraft, said Dr. Thomas Bussing, a vice president at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz. Further, it can fly within the turbulent, low-altitude boundary layer below 2,000 feet, where the P-3 and other manned aircraft are not permitted to fly.

Coyote was developed by Sensitel, a company that Raytheon bought in January 2015. It can assist in anti-submarine missions, as well as a variety of ISR missions, including targeting, according to Raytheon. The company says it has “completed flight tests under multiple U.S. Department of Defense programs” but has not yet reported a sale. However, another UAS developed by Sensitel—Silver Fox—did fly ISR missions for the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq.