General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, a company based in Poway, California, has secured a contract to supply Taiwan with four MQ-9B SkyGuardian unmanned air vehicles. The contract, which is valued at $217.6 million, also includes two Certifiable Ground Control Stations, spares, and support equipment. The work is expected to be completed by May 5, 2025, and will be performed in Poway.
This contract is a Foreign Military Sales agreement with Taiwan and was acquired through a sole-source acquisition. At the time of award, $107.4 million in Foreign Military Sales funds were obligated for the procurement.
In November 2020, the State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale of four MQ-9B Remotely Piloted Aircraft and related equipment to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO). The deal, valued at $600 million, includes two Fixed Ground Control Stations, two Mobile Ground Control Stations, and 14 Embedded Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigations Systems (EGI) with Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM).
In addition, the sale includes MX-20 Multi-Spectral Targeting Systems and spares, SeaVue Maritime Multi-Role Patrol Radars, SAGE 750 Electronic Surveillance Measures (ESM) Systems, C-Band Line-of-Sight (LOS) Ground Data Terminals, Ku-Band SATCOM GA-ASI Transportable Earth Stations (GATES), AN/DPX-7 IFF Transponders, Honeywell TPE-331-10GD Turboprop Engines, M6000 UHF/VHF Radios, KIV-77 Mode 5 IFF cryptographic appliques, AN/PYQ-10C Simple Key Loaders, secure communications, cryptographic and Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) equipment, initial spare and repair parts, hard points, power, and data connections for weapons integration, support and test equipment, publications and technical documentation, personnel training and training equipment, and U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services.
This sale was certified by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and notified to Congress in November 2020.
This is the second confirmed sale of MQ-9B in East Asia. The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) started operating a SeaGuardian from the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) Air Station Hachinohe in October 2022. The MQ-9B is being used to perform Maritime Wide Area Search (MWAS) primarily over the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean. The secondary missions of JCG’s Seaguardian are search and rescue, disaster response, and maritime law enforcement.
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