GA-ASI Honored by UK Government for Contributions to "Team Reaper" Excellence Award

Team Reaper Wins First Place for Acquisition in the DE&S Team Excellence Awards

FARNBOROUGH INTERNATIONAL AIR SHOW . – General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI), a leading manufacturer of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and tactical reconnaissance radars, today was presented with a 2007 Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) Team Excellence Award by the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Ministry of Defence (MoD). The Team Excellence Awards recognize the best project teams in the MoD DE&S organization. Team Reaper was honored for reducing the vulnerability of UK forces in Afghanistan by providing 24/7 wide-area surveillance, full-motion video with the deployed MQ-9 Reaper UAS manufactured and supported by GA-ASI.

“Reaper met a complex Urgent Operational Requirement held on track against demanding approvals through excellent team work,” cited General Sir Kevin O’Donoghue, Chief of Defence Materiel, UK MoD. “The team is a unique partnership, bringing together six integrated project teams, three support groups, sponsor, user, UK and U.S. Embassy staff, suppliers, and the U.S. Air Force [USAF] – providing excellence by delivering Reaper faster, cheaper, better, and more effectively integrated.”

“GA-ASI’s willingness and commitment to deliver Reaper in the unparalleled times achieved has been key to the project’s success.” added Philippa Harvey, Reaper programme manager.

Introduced to combat duty with the Royal Air Force in October 2007, the UK’s MQ-9 Reaper aircraft (also known as “Predator® B”) are providing persistent intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) services to British and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; a precision attack capability has recently been added. Having logged over 1,500 flying hours to date, the aircraft routinely perform such tasks as route reconnaissance and convoy support for ground forces, target tracking, and helicopter landing site reconnaissance.

“The multi-mission Predator B is an extremely reliable ISTAR asset that is quickly proving its capability as a valued strike aircraft as well,” said Thomas J. Cassidy, Jr., president, Aircraft Systems Group, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. “GA-ASI is proud to have been a part of the UK government’s success, and we look forward to reaching future milestones together.”

Among their impressive sensor suite, the MQ-9 Reaper aircraft are equipped with a GA-ASI Lynx® synthetic aperture radar (SAR) which allows for high-quality radar imagery and a ground motion target indicator (GMTI) capability to be downlinked to ground forces in real-time. GA-ASI also assists the RAF and USAF in providing deployed maintenance services for Reaper operations.