News

2025-12-01

GA-ASI and Saab Unite on MQ-9B AEW&C

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) is advancing unmanned aviation with new milestones — teaming with Saab to bring Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) capability to the MQ-9B. Separately, GA-ASI completed 120,000 hours of fatigue testing on the MQ-9B to validate its resilience and global readiness.
GA-ASI and Saab are set to demonstrate the AEW&C capability in the summer of 2026.

The demonstration will be conducted at GA-ASI’s Desert Horizon flight operations facility in Southern California using a GA-ASI MQ-9B equipped with AEW&C supplied by Saab.
Working with Saab, GA-ASI will pair Saab’s AEW sensors with the world’s longest-range, highest-endurance RPA, the MQ-9B. At sea or over land, adding AEW capabilities on MQ-9B enables persistent air surveillance and AEW in areas of the world where it does not currently exist or is unaffordable, like for navy aircraft carriers at sea.
“Adding AEW&C to the MQ-9B brings a critical new capability to our platform,” stated GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. “We want to deliver a persistent AEW&C solution to our global operators that will protect them against sophisticated cruise missiles as well as simple but dangerous drone swarms.”
MQ-9B models include the SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian, the United Kingdom’s MQ-9B variant known as Protector, and the new MQ-9B STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) configuration currently in development.

Persistent Protection
The AEW solution for MQ-9B will offer critical aloft sensing to defend against tactical air munitions, guided missiles, drones, fighter and bomber aircraft, and other threats. Operational availability for a medium-altitude, long-endurance RPA is the highest of any military aircraft, and as an unmanned platform, its aircrews are not put into harm’s way.
GA-ASI and Saab’s AEW offering will span a wide range of applications, including early detection and warning, long-range detection and tracking, simultaneous target tracking, and flexible combat system integration — all over line-of-sight and SATCOM connectivity.

MQ-9B Fatigue Test Completed
GA-ASI completed its third lifetime of full-scale fatigue (FSF) testing for its MQ-9B RPA on October 31. Completion of FSF testing for the third and final lifetime included a total of 120,000 operating hours (40,000+ flight hours per aircraft life) for the RPA and marks a key milestone in validating the design of the airframe. The testing verifies the airframe’s structural integrity in support of certification to the NATO STANAG 4671 standard.

FSF testing was aimed at identifying any potential structural deficiencies ahead of fleet usage and assisting in the development of inspection and maintenance schedules for the airframe. Test results will be used as documentation for certification and will form the basis for in-service inspections of structural components.
“The completion of our full-scale fatigue test validates years of GA-ASI design and analysis efforts,” Alexander noted. “The first two lifetimes simulated the operation of the aircraft under normal conditions, and the third intentionally inflicted damage to the airframe’s critical components to demonstrate its ability to tolerate operational damage that could occur over the lifetime of the aircraft.”

Testing was conducted from December 13, 2022, through October 31 at Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research in Wichita, Kansas. The airframe tested was a production airframe purpose-built to support the test campaign.