Pentagon awards $995M U.S. Air Force contract to Amentum for MQ-9 Reaper maintenance through 2030
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The Pentagon has awarded Amentum Services a $995 million contract to provide frontline maintenance for the Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet through 2030. The deal ensures higher mission-readiness for U.S. and allied operations worldwide at a time of ongoing global security demands.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced on September 30, 2025, that the Air Force has awarded Amentum Services a new indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract valued at up to $995 million to provide organizational-level maintenance for the MQ-9 Reaper fleet across multiple U.S. bases and overseas locations, with work expected to run through September 29, 2030. The award follows a competitive solicitation with three offers received and launches with initial fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance funds obligated. The contract covers frontline tasks that keep aircraft mission-ready, including pre- and post-flight inspections, scheduled servicing and corrective actions on airframes, propulsion and mission systems. The MQ-9 itself, produced by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, is a medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that pairs day-night sensors with precision weapons such as AGM-114 Hellfires and laser- or GPS-guided bombs.Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
The MQ-9 Reaper is a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone capable of 24-hour missions, flying up to 50,000 feet while carrying a mix of sensors and precision weapons, including Hellfire missiles and guided bombs for reconnaissance, surveillance, and strike operations (Picture source: U.S. DoW).
Under this award, Amentum teams will operate from Creech and Nellis in Nevada, Shaw in South Carolina, Ellsworth in South Dakota, Whiteman in Missouri, Air National Guard hubs in Michigan, Tennessee, Arkansas and Pennsylvania, and additional overseas sites aligned to combatant command requirements. This mirrors the distributed launch-and-recovery and mission control model that sustains 24/7 MQ-9 alert lines. The company has been embedded with Air Combat Command’s RPA enterprise since 2018, inheriting prior work performed under the legacy MQ-1/MQ-9/RQ-4 organizational-level maintenance vehicle and providing launch and recovery element crews and sensor operators to forward locations.
Amentum’s scope spans engine and propeller line maintenance on the TPE331 series, flight control rigging and composite airframe repairs, avionics troubleshooting across the mission processor, datalink and Ku-band SATCOM suites, and serviceability checks on the AN/DAS-1/-4 EO/IR turret and radar payloads. Keeping these systems healthy preserves the MQ-9’s core value proposition: long-dwell ISR with rapid sensor-to-shooter delivery. In its current Block 5 and Extended Range configurations, the Reaper can remain on station for more than a day depending on payload and external tanks, cruise near 200 knots, operate up to roughly 45,000 to 50,000 feet and carry about 3,750 pounds of external stores across seven hardpoints.
The Reaper’s mission systems enable crews to identify, track and strike time-sensitive targets while streaming full-motion video and metadata to joint fires cells. With standard weapons loads, a single aircraft can provide persistent custody over a target area, dynamically retask between surveillance and strike coordination, and deliver precision effects using laser designation or GPS-aided guidance. The aircraft’s Lynx multimode radar and maritime sensor options extend coverage to moving target indication and surface-search roles, while Automatic Identification System receivers support interdiction missions. Sustained O-level support mitigates one of the enterprise’s chronic constraints: weather- and environment-driven wear at austere launch sites that quickly erodes availability without rapid inspection and repair.
The contract underwrites continuous reconnaissance-strike coverage for combatant commanders from CENTCOM to AFRICOM and EUCOM, as well as training pipelines at home stations that feed crew currencies and weapons qualifications. By anchoring frontline maintenance at nine U.S. bases and deploying to “wherever required,” the award helps preserve MQ-9 alert lines, supports armed overwatch for special operations forces, maritime domain awareness, and homeland defense taskings with Air National Guard units. The ability to surge technicians and parts to dispersed sites directly translates into higher mission-capable rates and sortie generation.
MQ-9 Reaper remains heavily tasked for counter-ISIS monitoring, Red Sea and Gulf surveillance against Houthi threats, border and maritime interdiction, and NATO reassurance along the Alliance’s eastern flank. Allies continue to adopt the platform or its MQ-9B derivatives, while the United States weighs export policy and survivability upgrades for more contested environments. In that setting, locking in global organizational-level maintenance through 2030 signals a realistic near-term demand curve: the Air Force needs affordable mass in ISR and precision strike, and reliability at the flight line is the most economical way to generate it.
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The Pentagon has awarded Amentum Services a $995 million contract to provide frontline maintenance for the Air Force’s MQ-9 Reaper drone fleet through 2030. The deal ensures higher mission-readiness for U.S. and allied operations worldwide at a time of ongoing global security demands.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced on September 30, 2025, that the Air Force has awarded Amentum Services a new indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract valued at up to $995 million to provide organizational-level maintenance for the MQ-9 Reaper fleet across multiple U.S. bases and overseas locations, with work expected to run through September 29, 2030. The award follows a competitive solicitation with three offers received and launches with initial fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance funds obligated. The contract covers frontline tasks that keep aircraft mission-ready, including pre- and post-flight inspections, scheduled servicing and corrective actions on airframes, propulsion and mission systems. The MQ-9 itself, produced by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, is a medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that pairs day-night sensors with precision weapons such as AGM-114 Hellfires and laser- or GPS-guided bombs.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
The MQ-9 Reaper is a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone capable of 24-hour missions, flying up to 50,000 feet while carrying a mix of sensors and precision weapons, including Hellfire missiles and guided bombs for reconnaissance, surveillance, and strike operations (Picture source: U.S. DoW).
Under this award, Amentum teams will operate from Creech and Nellis in Nevada, Shaw in South Carolina, Ellsworth in South Dakota, Whiteman in Missouri, Air National Guard hubs in Michigan, Tennessee, Arkansas and Pennsylvania, and additional overseas sites aligned to combatant command requirements. This mirrors the distributed launch-and-recovery and mission control model that sustains 24/7 MQ-9 alert lines. The company has been embedded with Air Combat Command’s RPA enterprise since 2018, inheriting prior work performed under the legacy MQ-1/MQ-9/RQ-4 organizational-level maintenance vehicle and providing launch and recovery element crews and sensor operators to forward locations.
Amentum’s scope spans engine and propeller line maintenance on the TPE331 series, flight control rigging and composite airframe repairs, avionics troubleshooting across the mission processor, datalink and Ku-band SATCOM suites, and serviceability checks on the AN/DAS-1/-4 EO/IR turret and radar payloads. Keeping these systems healthy preserves the MQ-9’s core value proposition: long-dwell ISR with rapid sensor-to-shooter delivery. In its current Block 5 and Extended Range configurations, the Reaper can remain on station for more than a day depending on payload and external tanks, cruise near 200 knots, operate up to roughly 45,000 to 50,000 feet and carry about 3,750 pounds of external stores across seven hardpoints.
The Reaper’s mission systems enable crews to identify, track and strike time-sensitive targets while streaming full-motion video and metadata to joint fires cells. With standard weapons loads, a single aircraft can provide persistent custody over a target area, dynamically retask between surveillance and strike coordination, and deliver precision effects using laser designation or GPS-aided guidance. The aircraft’s Lynx multimode radar and maritime sensor options extend coverage to moving target indication and surface-search roles, while Automatic Identification System receivers support interdiction missions. Sustained O-level support mitigates one of the enterprise’s chronic constraints: weather- and environment-driven wear at austere launch sites that quickly erodes availability without rapid inspection and repair.
The contract underwrites continuous reconnaissance-strike coverage for combatant commanders from CENTCOM to AFRICOM and EUCOM, as well as training pipelines at home stations that feed crew currencies and weapons qualifications. By anchoring frontline maintenance at nine U.S. bases and deploying to “wherever required,” the award helps preserve MQ-9 alert lines, supports armed overwatch for special operations forces, maritime domain awareness, and homeland defense taskings with Air National Guard units. The ability to surge technicians and parts to dispersed sites directly translates into higher mission-capable rates and sortie generation.
MQ-9 Reaper remains heavily tasked for counter-ISIS monitoring, Red Sea and Gulf surveillance against Houthi threats, border and maritime interdiction, and NATO reassurance along the Alliance’s eastern flank. Allies continue to adopt the platform or its MQ-9B derivatives, while the United States weighs export policy and survivability upgrades for more contested environments. In that setting, locking in global organizational-level maintenance through 2030 signals a realistic near-term demand curve: the Air Force needs affordable mass in ISR and precision strike, and reliability at the flight line is the most economical way to generate it.
