The U.S. State Department has given the go ahead for a more than $313 million Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of munitions, radars and other equipment for Canadian MQ-9Bs by General Atomics.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification to Congress of the possible sale on Sept. 15, the State Department said.
The requested MQ-9B materiel includes 12 AN/APY-8 Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radars developed by General Atomics and Sandia National Laboratories; 219 Lockheed Martin [LMT] AGM-114R2 Hellfire II missiles; 18 Boeing [BA] KMU-572 tail kits for the GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and GBU-54 Laser JDAMs; and the Leonardo SAGE 750 and Sierra Nevada Corp. AE-4500 Electronic Surveillance Measures System.
“The proposed sale will improve Canada’s capability to meet current and future threats by enabling unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance patrols of its northern arctic territories,” the State Department said. “It will also enable Canada to optimally fulfill its North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) and NATO missions while increasing interoperability with U.S. and NATO forces.”
Possible future offsets are to be negotiated between General Atomics and Canada, the State Department said.