The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $291,3 million contract to General Atomics for MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft support and services.

The contract, announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Defense, 
provides for program management, logistics support, configuration management, technical manual and software maintenance, contractor field service representative support, inventory control point management, flight operations support, depot repair, and depot field maintenance.

Work will be performed in Poway, California, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2019. 

The MQ-9 Reaper is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that is employed primarily against dynamic execution targets and secondarily as an intelligence collection asset. 

Its significant loiter time, wide-range sensors, multi-mode communications suite, and precision weapons – allow aircrews to perform strike, coordination, and reconnaissance against high-value, fleeting, and time-sensitive targets

The MQ-9 utilizes satellites in space to perform their main mission. However, an antenna fixed to the ground provides the launch and recovery team to carefully land the multi-role asset without the worry of delay.