Australian Defence Force Selects GA-ASI’s MQ-9B for Project Air 7003
5.12.2019 04:28:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), the world’s leading manufacturer of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), has been advised that the Australian Government has selected GA-ASI’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian® variant to provide the Armed RPAS for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) under Project Air 7003. This follows the Government’s announcement in November 2018 that GA-ASI would provide Armed RPAS to the ADF. The ADF expects to take first delivery in the early 2020s.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191204005989/en/
The Australian Government selected GA-ASI’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian® variant to provide the Armed RPAS for the Australian Defence Force under Project Air 7003. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We have worked closely with the ADF to determine the right RPAS to meet their needs,” said Linden Blue, CEO, GA-ASI. “MQ-9B will provide the all-weather, multi-mission support, and interoperability that the ADF requires. We look forward to working closely with our Australian industry partners to provide a highly capable RPAS to the ADF, while creating high-tech jobs in Australia.”
The ADF joins other top-tier military forces in choosing a GA-ASI RPAS because of its proven multi-role combat performance. MQ-9B is part of GA-ASI’s Predator® series of RPAS, which is the world’s most trusted and capable armed Medium-altitude, Long-endurance (MALE) RPAS, and hails from a family of aircraft that has flown more than six million flight hours.
The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) is acquiring the MQ-9B as part of its Protector RG Mk1 program and is scheduled for first delivery in the early 2020s. The Government of Belgium has approved Belgian Defense to negotiate for the acquisition of MQ-9B to meet the nation’s RPA requirements.
MQ-9B development is the result of a five-year, company funded program to deliver an unmanned aircraft system to meet the stringent airworthiness type-certification requirements of NATO and civil aviation authorities throughout the world. MQ-9B is provisioned for the GA-ASI-developed Detect and Avoid (DAA) system, which consists of air-to-air radar, Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS II), and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B). The MQ-9B is built for all-weather performance with lightning protection, damage tolerance, and de-icing system.
GA-ASI announced its intention to offer a MALE RPAS to the ADF during AVALON 2017 with the launch of Team Reaper Australia, a robust group of Australian industry partners. The team currently consists of ten world-class Australian companies providing a range of innovative sensor, communication, manufacturing and life-cycle support capabilities including Cobham (lead industry partner), CAE, Raytheon, Flight Data Systems, TAE Aerospace, Quickstep, AirSpeed, Collins Aerospace, Ultra, and SentientVision.
Hi-resolution images of the MQ-9B SkyGuardian are available to qualified media outlets from the GA-ASI media contact list.
About GA-ASI
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of General Atomics, is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems, including the Predator® RPA series and the Lynx® Multi-mode Radar. With nearly 6 million flight hours, GA-ASI provides long-endurance, mission-capable aircraft with integrated sensor and data link systems required to deliver persistent flight that enables situational awareness and rapid strike. The company also produces a variety of ground control stations and sensor control/image analysis software, offers pilot training and support services, and develops meta-material antennas. For more information, visit www.ga-asi.com.
Predator, SkyGuardian and Lynx are registered trademarks of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191204005989/en/
Contact information
Steven Henden
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
+1 (858) 524-8101
ASI-MediaRelations@ga-asi.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Enhertu ® Approved in the EU as Adjuvant Treatment for Patients with Residual Disease After Neoadjuvant Treatment for HER2 Positive Early Breast Cancer27.10.2026 09:30:00 EET | Press release
Enhertu® (trastuzumab deruxtecan) has been approved in the European Union (EU) as a monotherapy for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with resected HER2 positive (immunohistochemistry [IHC] 3+ or in-situ hybridization [ISH]+) breast cancer who have residual invasive disease after neoadjuvant taxane-based and HER2 targeted treatment. Enhertu is a specifically engineered HER2 directed DXd antibody drug conjugate (ADC) discovered by Daiichi Sankyo (TSE: 4568) and being jointly developed and commercialized by Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca (LSE/STO/NYSE: AZN). The approval by the European Commission follows the positive opinionof the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency and is based on results from the DESTINY-Breast05 phase 3 trial presented at the 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology (#ESMO25) Congress and subsequently published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In DESTINY-Breast05, Enhertu significantly reduced the risk of in
Avanzanite Bioscience Expands UK Presence and Appoints Sarah O’Connell as Country Manager27.10.2026 09:00:00 EET | Press release
Avanzanite Bioscience B.V., a European pharmaceutical company focused on rare diseases, today announced the expansion of its United Kingdom (UK) presence and the appointment of Sarah O’Connell as UK Country Manager. The move strengthens Avanzanite’s long-term commitment to the UK and its ability to help eligible patients access innovative rare disease medicines. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261027035012/en/ Sarah O'Connell, Country Manager, UK, Avanzanite Bioscience “The UK is essential to our ambition of building Avanzanite into a European rare disease champion. We feel a deep and lasting connection to this market and there is no European reach without the UK,” said Adam Plich, co-founder and CEO, Avanzanite Bioscience. “At a time when parts of the life sciences sector are reassessing their investment and presence in the UK, we are choosing to commit and build for the long term. With Sarah’s extensive rare
LTM Secures Strategic Engagement with a Global Banking and Financial Services Firm27.10.2026 06:30:00 EET | Press release
LTM, the Business Creativity partner to the world's largest enterprises, has secured a strategic engagement with a large global banking and financial services firm, further strengthening its position as a trusted technology and transformation partner to leading financial institutions. This two-year engagement is already underway with an option to extend for an additional year and has a potential value of up to USD 100 million. The engagement reflects the continued expansion of LTM’s relationship with the client and its growing role in advancing strategic technology programmes and supporting supplier consolidation initiatives across the organization. Under the agreement, LTM will serve as a preferred partner driving the consolidation and delivery of strategic technology requirements across key wealth, personal banking, and global functions. The engagement will leverage LTM’s deep banking-domain expertise, engineering excellence, and global delivery capabilities to support the client’s t
DDN Selected to Modernize Research Data Infrastructure at UNSW Sydney26.10.2026 23:30:00 EET | Press release
DDN, the global leader in AI and data intelligence solutions, today announced that UNSW Sydney has selected DDN to deliver a new research data storage environment as part of the university’s Research Data Experience (RDE) program. Working with Australian software company Arcitecta, DDN will combine its EXAScaler parallel file system with Arcitecta’s Mediaflux® data management platform to help researchers spend less time managing data and more time using it. Following an extensive 18-month evaluation, UNSW selected an integrated approach that will replace 11 legacy storage systems with a coordinated environment for high-performance storage and enterprise data management. The decision reflects a broader challenge facing research-intensive institutions: how to support rapidly expanding scientific datasets while simplifying infrastructure, improving data accessibility and managing long-term costs. Built for data-intensive research, high-performance computing and AI workloads, DDN EXAScaler
Agent Assurance by TestMu AI Is Now Generally Available, Letting Teams Test What Their AI Agents Actually Change26.10.2026 17:15:00 EET | Press release
TestMu AI (formerly LambdaTest), the world's first Agentic AI-powered Quality Engineering platform, today announced the general availability of Agent Assurance. Agent Assurance tests AI agents that take actions, such as calling tools, writing files, and changing records, by checking what a run actually changed rather than what the agent says it did. Any team can now create a TestMu AI account and run it against its own agent without booking a demo first. Agent Assurance launched on August 17, 2026, behind a waitlist and a guided onboarding session. Since then, Rook, the CLI that runs Agent Assurance, has shipped a steady run of releases, shaped by feedback from early teams. Agent evaluation has mostly graded the final reply, and that reply can be wrong about the agent's own work. In CXBench, a benchmark of LLM agents in regulated customer-experience workflows published in October 2026, 80.1% of runs that reached the right outcome still failed the process checks, and only 13.8% passed b
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom