The US Air Force (USAF) is interested in technologies and capabilities available or its Next-Generation Multirole Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Family of Systems (FoS) requirement. Colloquially known as MQ-Next, this effort would replace the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems lnc (GA-ASI) MQ-9 Reaper medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS in USAF service. The MQ-9 was deployed for more than 10 years to perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions over permissive airspace in Iraq and Afghanistan. Howeve, the USAF is now preparing for potential conflict with China in the Pacific that will feature more contested and highly congested airspace than that in the Middle East and Central Asia. A request for information (RFI) was issued for the requirement to replace the MQ-9 on 3 June 2020, but the USAF later expanded its market research with a second RFI on 5 March asking about a next-generation multirole UAS FoS that could support many different sensor capabilities.
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