MQ-9B

The Arctic is increasingly recognized as being of critical strategic importance, with the U.S., as well as NATO members, eager to swiftly implement measures to stamp authority on and preserve security in the region. This will need a multi-layered approach that includes a host of airborne capabilities, especially those pertaining to the surveillance of huge areas. These requirements are complicated by the austere conditions of the frigid high north. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) believes its MQ-9B SeaGuardian® remotely piloted aircraft is ideally suited for Arctic ops and is ready to answer the call for duty at the top of the world.

The continuing retreat of the polar ice cap is opening up opportunities for new shipping routes as well as access to previously untapped natural resources. Together, this has spurred a rush for increased Western presence in the region to ensure access to help stabilize a potential flashpoint that’s of global interest and importance. Even so, the Arctic remains one of the most inhospitable zones on the planet.

Russia has been making moves to extend its already robust military presence in the Arctic. This includes the reactivation of dormant northern air bases and seaports that could be utilized to help deny access to the high north. China too is recognizing the strategic potential of the area, underscored by an expanding presence there. This helped spur the Pentagon to identify the Arctic as “an increasingly competitive domain,” warning Congress of China’s interest in the region.

Braced for the cold

The MQ-9B SeaGuardian is designed for medium-altitude, long-endurance missions, and it incorporates more than three decades’ worth of GA-ASI’s experience in uncrewed air systems. The company has honed its expertise through programs such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. The MQ-9B family includes the baseline SkyGuardian and the maritime-optimized SeaGuardian, as well as the United Kingdom’s Protector version.

The SeaGuardian is physically larger than its predecessors, with a longer wingspan, giving it more range than anything else in this category, as well as better endurance – as much as 40 hours in some configurations. The SeaGuardian’s longer wings mean it can generate sufficient lift to enable it to operate from a wide variety of airfields with runways of limited length, thus affording greater operational flexibility.

GA-ASI is also developing a short takeoff and landing-optimized version of the MQ-9B, which could be employed from aircraft carriers and big deck amphibious assault ships. This capability could also be employed for accessing even smaller airfields.

Introducing MQ-9B STOL

When it comes to cold-weather operations, such as those in the Arctic, the aircraft features electro-expulsive de-icing and a field-proven cold-start capability. In one demonstration, an MQ-9B was cold-soaked and then de-iced, and it started its engine in ambient temperatures below -21 degrees Centigrade (about -5 degrees Fahrenheit), then took off without incident. GA-ASI has proved that the aircraft can roll out from a climate-controlled hangar into subzero ambient conditions, start up, and fly.

“With respect to iced runways, we can operate at airports with runways the same as a conventional aircraft – so it’s cold, there’s ice, but the airport ops crew goes out and clears and salts, and that enables normal flight ops at their field,” commented a GA-ASI spokesperson. “We can do that as far north as there are airports that support those kinds of conditions at the field.”

Important aircraft operators have selected the MQ-9B specifically for these features.

“Nobody knows the hardships associated with operating in the cold better than the Royal Canadian Air Force [RCAF], which is why they needed to be confident this aircraft would work in some of the least hospitable fields in the world,” says Michel Lalumiere, a former RCAF general officer who today leads Canadian business strategy for GA-ASI. “We’ve been working closely with them to ensure that it will become normal operations.” 

Canada is purchasing 11 MQ-9Bs for Arctic operations to provide persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

An uncrewed vehicle like the MQ-9B can be controlled remotely from nearly anywhere on the planet. It can operate from an existing air base or at a remote forward location without the need for extensive supporting manpower deployments. Automated takeoff and landing means any support crews that are needed to launch, recover, and maintain operational SeaGuardians can be minimal and more easily sustained.

“You don’t need to bed down a squadron somewhere cold and remote if you don’t want to,” Lalumiere says. “You could send up a small team that catches an MQ-9B at a forward post, refuels, turns the aircraft, and sends it on its way, enabled by the automatic takeoff and landing capabilities. Sustaining these operations becomes about the missions and not the deployments, as we might have thought about them once.”

There is a linked benefit to operating uncrewed air assets in the vast and inhospitable Arctic. Crewed patrol aircraft necessitate search-and-rescue assets standing by in case of emergency. The uncrewed MQ-9B doesn’t need those, so that kind of resource-intensive contingency support can be tasked elsewhere.

Time on task is another consideration. An airborne, on-mission SeaGuardian can change out operating crews over regular shift patterns at the ground control station while the air asset continues its work. With sufficient aircraft and aircrews, an air arm can maintain sufficient orbits to keep watch on a large area of ocean around the clock, indefinitely.

“Imagine an air ops plan like this. A detachment of MQ-9Bs is working heel-to-toe, providing 24/7 overwatch above a patch of important waters,” says Lalumiere. “Aircraft one might have taken off carrying a 360-degree surface search radar to establish the highest-quality domain awareness – and it detects a specific ship of interest. As that aircraft stays with that target, commanders decide to prepare aircraft two in a clean configuration, with no payloads, in order to maximize its endurance. Aircraft two launches and relieves aircraft one, staying with the vessel of interest for many hours. The coast guard decides to interdict the vessel. The aircraft with communications relay equipment coordinates that operation while the other aircraft remain ready to launch, take over, and hold custody of the area, 24/7, until the mission is completed.” 

Multi-mission capability

The modular payload and open architecture MQ-9B is designed to carry a range of systems that enable it to sense and observe anything that comes or goes on the surface of land and sea, in the air, and even beneath the waves. The aircraft can also collect signals intelligence or take on a number of other roles by using many specialized payloads. This is in addition to the aircraft’s ability to strike targets of many kinds.

The MQ-9B has the ability to deploy sonobuoys to listen for submarines – a highly valuable feature considering what lurks below the surface in the Arctic. GA-ASI has flight-tested sonobuoy dispensing system (SDS) pods as part of a broader demonstration of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities for the SeaGuardian. This initially involved an MQ-9A carrying one of the 10-tube dispensers and other ASW-related systems as a surrogate for a SeaGuardian.

GA-ASI and the U.S. Navy continued to expand the ASW capability of the MQ-9B with testing in December 2025 that featured dual sonobuoy pods, thereby doubling the number of sonobuoys available. “Expanding sonobuoy capacity, including Multi-static Active Coherent (MAC) technology for SeaGuardian, has been an integral part of our advanced ASW strategy to broaden and enhance search areas,” said GA-ASI President David Alexander.

While the SDS pods are initially used to release sonobuoys, the company has said that they will also be able to launch smaller unmanned aircraft, the latter of which could then potentially operate as an autonomous swarm. This can drastically increase the size of a single MQ-9B’s collection area and provides tactical flexibility for a single platform that was previously impossible to obtain.

The MQ-9B is already being prepared to be able to release a small unmanned craft of its own, such as GA-ASI’s Sparrowhawk drone and other launched effects.  

In addition to providing ISR over a large geographical area, small drones like the Sparrowhawk could provide other capabilities, such as stand-in electronic warfare jamming, or even act as decoys to confuse an enemy, further improving the survivability of the host aircraft. U.S. Special Operations Command has already experimented with the use of MQ-9Bs as launch platforms for small expendable drones.

The SeaGuardian is also being prepared as an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) variant, which would present a readily deployable, long-endurance solution for this important role, which would carry obvious benefits in the Arctic to keep an eye on the airspace, including spotting unexpected air traffic.

Operational relevance

The SeaGuardian’s multi-mission flexibility is seen by GA-ASI as being highly relevant to Arctic multi-domain awareness. A regular pattern of patrol flights would enable authorities to maintain a comprehensive picture of who and what is present in the far north, and therefore how best to respond.

A detachment of uncrewed MQ-9Bs presents a far smaller footprint than crewed patrol aircraft, which are often costly and have their own risk factors when operating in such austere conditions. It’s worth noting that some satellite coverage in the high latitudes is spotty, irregular, and operationally unresponsive. However, the SeaGuardian is equipped with satellite communications equipment that can take advantage of both new and emerging spacecraft constellations for operations anywhere.

The MQ-9B has been ordered by the United Kingdom, Belgium, Poland, Japan, Canada, India, Qatar, and several other nations. SeaGuardians have already proved their worth. In 2024, MQ-9B supported the Indian Navy in a rescue mission to save crew members aboard a merchant ship captured by pirates as well as helping to locate vessels in distress. They have even aided mariners in the Pacific Ocean to avoid the hazards represented by newly formed volcanic islands.

The latest customers include a group of northern powers, namely Canada, Denmark and, most recently, Germany. The U.S. Navy has also included the MQ-9B in fleet exercises, including Northern Edge, Integrated Battle Problem, RIMPAC, and Group Sail, in which it has escorted warships, coordinated communications, and tracked simulated submarines, amongst other tasks. The Navy is now expected to give GA-ASI deployment flight clearance for distributed ASW operations using the SeaGuardian.

So, while many in Washington, D.C., and in European capitals are preparing for a disputatious Arctic, GA-ASI believes that the SeaGuardian is ready for the challenges that lie ahead at the top of the world.

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com