General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) has delivered the first MQ-9A Extended Range (ER) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to the US Marine Corps (USMC), the company announced on 30 April 2024.
The delivery of the MQ-9A ER, which actually took place on 18 March 2024, was to Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Training Squadron 2 (VMUT-2) as part of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Unmanned Expeditionary (MUX) Program, which ordered eight MQ-9A ER UASs as part of the ARES indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract in May 2022.
“It’s exciting to make this first delivery to VMUT-2, which continues to build the relationship between GA-ASI, the USMC, and NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command),” GA-ASI vice president of DoD Strategic Development Patrick Shortsleeve, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “GA-ASI has been a contracted warfighting partner of the USMC for several years and VMUT-2’s ability to produce aircrews for the USMC is a tremendous advancement in the USMC’s organic capability.”
VMUT-2 is a UAS training squadron for the USMC based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock, North Carolina.
The MQ-9A ER is designed with field-retrofittable capabilities such as wing-borne fuel pods and reinforced landing gear that extend the aircraft’s endurance to more than 30 hours while further increasing its operational flexibility. The aircraft provides long-endurance, persistent surveillance with full-motion video and synthetic aperture radar/moving target indicator/maritime mode radar capabilities. Equipped with a fault-tolerant flight control system and a triple-redundant avionics system architecture, the MQ-9A ER is engineered to meet and exceed manned aircraft reliability standards.
