MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (BLI 1108MQ9) · SOCOM

What it is

MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (1108MQ9) is a SOCOM procurement line funded in the Procurement, Defense-Wide account.

What changed

+$11.3M FY25→26 P-1 TOA · PB2026

Who gets it

No single contractor is published as this line's leader. 3 linked award records are listed below. This line's high-confidence links do not clear the floor for a published concentration index — at least 3 awards across 2 contractor families holding positive obligations, with positive net linked dollars. Why the crosswalk is partial.

Budget figures

FY24 Actuals

$17.7MP-1 TOA · PB2026

FY25 Enacted

$13.5MP-1 TOA · PB2026

FY26 Request

$24.9MP-1 TOA · PB2026

48.2% reconciliation

$12.9M discretionary + $12.0M one-time reconciliation. Discretionary change vs FY2025 enacted: -4.8%.

FY25→26 Change

+$11.3MP-1 TOA · PB2026

Two official figures, one label— reconciled below

Fiscal Receipts uses P-1/R-1 workbook total obligation authority (TOA) as the headline figure sitewide. The workbook TOA includes budget rows that the R-2/P-40 J-book program line excludes — advance procurement in an ordinary year, and in FY2026 the one-time reconciliation appropriation as well. Each row below names the one it is. How the two bases relate →

FY26 Request · $24.9M TOA − $12.9M J-book line = 12.0M (24.9 − 12.9 = 12.0) — $12.0M of one-time FY2026 reconciliation money accounts for this gap — not advance procurement

Figures in the sentence are rounded for reading; the parenthesised arithmetic is the same subtraction in USD millions, at the precision where it closes.

Data coverage

FY2026 award data is a partial year — USAspending reports awards on a rolling basis, and this corpus runs through 2026-09-04. why partial FY2026 data? →

Budget trajectory

The program's 3 summary figures for FY24 to FY26, plotted in fiscal-year order: this line ends higher than it starts. The points are the summary cards above, not a separate derivation; the table beside the chart carries each figure with its own citation.

Budget trajectory: one row per fiscal year, carrying the summary figure the sparkline plots. Every figure opens its own citation.
Fiscal year	Amount
FY24	$17.7M
FY25	$13.5M
FY26	$24.9M

All series figures: P-1 TOA · PB2026

Decade view

P-1/R-1 workbook TOA basis, shown compact in $B/$M (the workbook records USD thousands); each figure cites its own President's Budget edition

5 fiscal years of this program as published (FY2022–FY2026): a line through the actuals (filled dots), with the enacted (hollow circles) and request (diamonds) markers each edition reported. Read it for direction, not for precision — this program's actuals line rises across the span. The grid below is the same data as text, one cited figure per cell.

The vertical scale does not start at zero: the baseline sits just below this program’s smallest year, so a low point on this line is not a small amount. Read the shape for direction and the grid below for the figures.

● actuals (line) · ○ enacted · ◇ request — gaps are editions the program is absent from, never interpolated.

Decade series values by fiscal year and President's Budget edition: one row per series (actuals, enacted, request), one column per fiscal year. Every figure opens its own citation.
Series	FY22	FY23	FY24	FY25	FY26
Actuals	$8.02M	$14.0M	$17.7M
Enacted	–	$14.0M	$17.7M	$13.5M
Request	–	–	$17.7M	$19.1M	$24.9M

blank = series not published for this year; – = absent from that edition.

Program lineage

No predecessor/successor lineage was recorded for this program element — no FY-to-FY transfer into or out of this line was stated in the ingested J-books, and none was inferred from the program structure.

Description

Description — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE

The MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Line Item funds the acquisition and rapid fielding of Special Operations-peculiar (SO-p) mission kits, payloads, weaponization, modifications, production support for MQ-9 UAVs, Ground Control Stations (GCSs), and training systems. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is designated the Department of Defense lead for planning, synchronizing, and as directed, executing global operations against terrorist networks. As the Combatant Command executing these operations, the USSOCOM requires the capability to find, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze time sensitive high-value targets. These targets can often only be identified with patient collection of information and require rapid, decisive action during the short periods in which they present themselves. This Line Item addresses the primary areas of Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR), target acquisition, and strike. The Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) capability funds the acquisition and rapid fielding of SO-p capabilities for the MQ-9 UAV to use in collaboration environments to facilitate a more efficient and expeditious integration to operate in against near-peer and peer adversaries in contested or denied and highly congested environments. The USSOCOM is shifting from multiple operators controlling a single MQ-9 to human-machine teams commanding a family of uncrewed and optionally-crewed systems. The USSOCOM requires the capability to advance unmanned systems from a single operational domain and hierarchical command and control system to a multi-domain, agile, small footprint, mesh-network command and control ecosystem. A2E is a platform-agnostic, modular weapon system designed for integration and interoperability with various crewed and uncrewed platforms. This adaptable system leverages SOF access and placement to enable sensing, non-kinetic effects, and strike in contested/denied environments. A2E leverages current MQ-9A availability with small UAS (sUAS) to close mission gaps in contested and denied environments by fielding integrated capability increments to provide increased mission support to the warfighter.

Justification

Justification — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE

The FY 2026 request for MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle includes $12.890 million of discretionary and $11.990 million of mandatory (reconciliation) for a total of $24.880 million. The mandatory funds procure mission kits, mission payloads, weaponization and modifications. Further information for this reconciliation request is provided in Section 20010 (Readiness) of the Reconciliation Exhibit. The following justifications reflect the sum totals of mandatory (reconciliation) and discretionary categories of funding. FY 2026 BASE PROGRAM JUSTIFICATION: Leverages other service and activity to fielded capabilities to rapidly procure SO-p mission kits, mission payloads, weaponization, modifications, production support, and for Adaptive Airborne Enterprise to accelerate integration on MQ-9, Ground Control Stations, and training systems. FY 2025 to FY 2026 overall decrease of $0.653 million includes: $6.363 million decrease in mission kits, payloads, weaponization and modifications as these funds are being requested and included in the overall mandatory (reconciliation) amount of $11.990 million; $5.833 million increase in Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) procures 24 Group 2 ISR Air Launched Effects (ALE) sUAS units and five Group 2 munition variant sUAS and also supports increases in engineering and program management support to execute the integration of the Group 2 small UAS systems onto the MQ-9 and A2E; and a $0.123 mission decrease in production support.

Budget line items(workbook-cited)

P-1/R-1 workbook Total Obligation Authority basis (USD thousands) · PB2026.

Exhibit P-1

Account	Org	Type	Amount
Procurement, Defense-Wide	SOCOM	FY24 Actuals	$17.7M
Procurement, Defense-Wide	SOCOM	FY25 Enacted	$13.5M
Procurement, Defense-Wide	SOCOM	FY26 Disc. Request	$12.9M
Procurement, Defense-Wide	SOCOM	FY26 Reconciliation	$12.0M
Procurement, Defense-Wide	SOCOM	FY26 Total	$24.9M

Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)

J-book detail basis (R-2/P-40, USD millions) · PB2026 — a different accounting basis from the P-1/R-1 workbook TOA above; where the two disagree, the reconciliation strip under Budget figures shows both.

Wider than this screen — swipe the table sideways for the remaining fiscal-year columns.

Project	All Prior Years	FY24 Actuals	FY25 Total	FY26 Base	FY26 Request
Program Element	$330.1M	$17.7M	$13.5M	$12.9M	$12.9M

Follow the dollar

No follow-the-dollar view — this program's awards haven't been crosswalked at high confidence (flows cover 312 of 1,938 programs). why coverage is partial? →

Related awards

Award linkage is shown for 32 of 200 profiled companies — high- and medium-confidence USAspending matches, each row labeled; medium is the weaker evidence. why partial award coverage? →

Rows marked medium rest on evidence weaker than a program-level match, and of more than one kind. An account-based row, where the award drew from the same appropriation account as this program, is an association, not evidence that this program paid for the contract. Where the evidence is instead an FPDS acquisition-program tag or a subaward description, the program is established but which of its budget lines paid is not. An announcement link a recorded review did not leave standing is medium too. Only high rows rest on the contract naming this program with a recorded review upholding it and no recorded rejection or refutation applying.

Recipient	PIID	Confidence
GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS, INC.	FA862017F2351	medium
GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS, INC.	FA862018F2301	medium
GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS, INC.	FA862018F2372	medium

Contractor concentration

No concentration index is published for this line. This line's high-confidence links do not clear the floor for a published concentration index — at least 3 awards across 2 contractor families holding positive obligations, with positive net linked dollars. An index below that floor is a fact about the sample, not about the market. Whatever further links this line carries are medium-confidence, and what each medium evidence path does and does not establish is set out in the methodology. Both bases are in the downloadable warehouse.

Lobbying mentions

Showing 25 of 69 from the Senate LDA disclosure database.

BAE SYSTEMS INCUnmanned|Vehicle2026matched 2+ title words

National Defense Authorization Act, 2027 (HR 8800/S 4784); provisions regarding R&D - Navy, US Marine Corps, Air…

MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Budget figures

Budget trajectory

Decade view

Program lineage

Description

Description — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE source

Justification

Justification — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE source

Budget line items(workbook-cited)

Budget Details(R-2/P-40 facts)

Follow the dollar

Related awards

Contractor concentration

Lobbying mentions

Oversight

Program dossier

Primary sources

Budget totals · TOA sources

Detailed budget justification

Description — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE

Justification — MQ-9 UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE