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Air Force contracts $26.6M for Reaper drone services

By James LaPorta
A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper, assigned to the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, armed with four GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition, parks on a flightline before a mission on Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan Feb. 22, 2018. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Paul Labbe/U.S. Air Force.
A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper, assigned to the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, armed with four GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition, parks on a flightline before a mission on Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan Feb. 22, 2018. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Paul Labbe/U.S. Air Force.

April 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Air Force has awarded General Atomics a contract for services in support of MQ-9 Reaper drones.

The deal, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $26.6 million under the terms of a firm-fixed-price contract, which is a modification to a previous Pentagon award.

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The agreement between the Air Force's Life Cycle Management Center and General Atomics enables the company to provide "MQ-9 Reaper production of spare engines and engine shipping containers," according to a Defense Department contract announcement. The MQ-9 Reaper is an upgraded version of the MQ-1 Predator, a drone primarily used in intelligence and surveillance that the U.S. military is phasing out.

Work on the contract will occur in Poway, Calif., and is expected to be complete in May 2020.

The total amount of the contract will be obligated to General Atomics at time of award from fiscal 2016 and 2017 aircraft procurement funds, said the Pentagon press release.

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