U.S. Air Force Arms MQ-9 Reaper Drone With APKWS Rockets for Counter-Drone Missions.

General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force have successfully fired BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets from an MQ-9A Reaper during testing at the Nevada Test and Training Range, expanding the drone’s ability to engage low-cost aerial threats without relying on more expensive missiles. GA-ASI announced the demonstration on May 11, 2026, highlighting a growing push to adapt long-endurance unmanned aircraft for counter-drone missions as one-way attack UAVs become a persistent battlefield threat.

The MQ-9A conducted multiple firing profiles using laser-guided rockets and a dedicated launcher, including engagements against aerial targets designed to simulate drone threats. Adding APKWS to the Reaper gives operators a cheaper precision-strike option for defending airspace, protecting forward forces, and sustaining high-tempo operations where missile inventories and response costs are becoming major operational concerns.

Related topic: France Demonstrates U.S.-Made MQ-9 Reaper Anti-Drone Capability with First Hellfire Trial Against Aerial Target.

GA-ASI and the U.S. Air Force demonstrated BAE Systems' APKWS laser-guided rockets on an MQ-9A Reaper, showing a low-cost precision option for engaging drones and other light targets during long-endurance missions (Picture source: General Atomics Aeronautical).

The relevant point is not simply that the MQ-9A fired another weapon. The aircraft has long been associated with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and 500-pound-class guided bombs, but those weapons were designed mainly for ground targets such as vehicles, personnel, command posts, and fixed points. APKWS gives the Reaper a smaller precision munition that is better matched to targets where a Hellfire or guided bomb may be technically effective but inefficient in cost, magazine depth, and blast effect. That distinction is important because the operational problem posed by one-way attack drones is not only detection or interception; it is the ability to repeat interceptions at an acceptable cost while keeping higher-end missiles available for aircraft, cruise missiles, and more complex threats.

APKWS is a conversion kit for the 2.75-inch, or 70 mm, Hydra rocket family rather than a clean-sheet missile. NAVAIR lists the APKWS II all-up round at 73.77 inches in length, 2.75 inches in diameter, 32.6 pounds in weight, with a 9.55-inch wingspan after deployment, a Mk66 Mod 4 rocket motor, and either an M151 or Mk 152 10-pound high-explosive warhead. The guidance section itself is 18.5 inches long and 9.8 pounds, installed between the legacy warhead and rocket motor. Maximum speed is listed at 1,000 meters per second. These dimensions explain why APKWS can increase the number of precision weapons carried by an aircraft compared with heavier missiles: it is closer in size and handling to an unguided rocket, but with terminal guidance added.

The technical feature that separates APKWS from a conventional semi-active laser weapon is the Distributed Aperture Semi-Active Laser Seeker, or DASALS. Instead of placing the seeker in the nose, BAE Systems locates the optics on the four guidance wings, which are protected before launch by slot seals and deploy after firing. BAE states that the optics can lock onto moving or stationary targets in open or confined terrain and provide a 40-degree instantaneous field of regard, allowing the rocket to acquire reflected laser energy and correct its flight path after launch. The company also states that the current guidance section is designed to lock on from more than 6 kilometers, although actual engagement geometry depends on launch altitude, target aspect, designation quality, weather, and rules of engagement.

For an MQ-9A crew, that guidance method fits the aircraft’s existing mission equipment. The U.S. Air Force describes the baseline MQ-9 as carrying the Multi-Spectral Targeting System, including infrared, daylight television, shortwave infrared, a laser designator, and a laser illuminator, with full-motion video available to the crew. The aircraft also has a synthetic aperture radar and can conduct target development, route clearance, convoy overwatch, buddy-lasing, close air support, precision strike, and terminal air guidance. In practical terms, the Reaper already has the sensor and laser-designation architecture needed to find, track, designate, and engage targets with a semi-active laser-guided rocket, although engagement of aerial targets requires a more demanding tracking solution than engagement of a stationary vehicle or building.

The aircraft’s performance data also explains why the demonstration has operational relevance. The MQ-9 uses a Honeywell TPE331-10GD turboprop engine rated at 900 shaft horsepower, has a 66-foot wingspan, a 36-foot length, a maximum takeoff weight of 10,500 pounds, and a payload capacity of 3,750 pounds. The U.S. Air Force lists its ceiling at up to 50,000 feet, range at 1,150 miles for the baseline aircraft and 1,611 miles for the extended-range version, with the extended-range configuration increasing fuel capacity from 4,000 to 6,000 pounds and maximum takeoff weight to 11,700 pounds. Those figures do not make the MQ-9A a fighter aircraft, but they do make it a persistent armed sensor that can remain near a defended area, maritime corridor, border sector, or forward operating location for periods that crewed tactical aircraft normally cannot sustain without tanker support.

The tactical use case is therefore specific. An MQ-9A with APKWS could patrol outside the immediate range of some short-range threats, use onboard sensors or offboard cueing to locate a one-way attack drone, maintain track, and employ a laser-guided 70 mm rocket against an airframe that may be too cheap to justify a larger missile. The 10-pound warhead is not designed to defeat a main battle tank, but against small unmanned aerial vehicles, loitering munitions, light trucks, exposed launch teams, radar equipment, and other soft or lightly protected targets; its fragmentation and blast effects are more proportionate than larger air-to-ground weapons. The military value comes from matching the munition to the target rather than using the most powerful weapon available.

The test also has an industrial-based dimension that should not be treated as secondary. BAE Systems said in February 2026 that it had delivered its 100,000th APKWS laser-guidance kit, and the company lists production facilities in Hudson, New Hampshire, and Austin, Texas, with stated manufacturing capacity of at least 25,000 units per year. In December 2025, BAE Systems announced a five-year U.S. Navy indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum value of $1.7 billion and an initial $322 million order for APKWS guidance kits. For a counter-drone mission set, those numbers matter because inventory depth and replenishment rate can be as decisive as single-shot performance.

There are also limitations. APKWS remains dependent on laser designation, line of sight, atmospheric conditions, target contrast, and the ability of the aircraft or another designator to keep the laser spot on the target through the engagement. Fast, maneuvering, high-altitude, or heavily defended targets may require other interceptors. The MQ-9A itself is not a survivable penetrating aircraft in dense integrated air defenses; recent combat experience has reinforced that medium-altitude remotely piloted aircraft are exposed when adversaries possess competent surface-to-air missiles. The more realistic role is not deep penetration against peer air defenses, but persistent coverage in permissive or partly contested airspace, base defense, maritime overwatch, border security, convoy protection, and rear-area counter-UAS missions.

The importance of the demonstration is that it links three existing elements: the MQ-9A’s endurance and sensor package, the U.S. inventory of 70 mm rocket components, and a guidance kit already in full-rate production across multiple U.S. services. If further testing validates reliability against representative aerial targets, APKWS could give MQ-9A units a repeatable method for engaging drones and other low-end threats without using scarce high-cost missiles. The test is best understood as an incremental but measurable adaptation: it does not transform the Reaper into an air-superiority aircraft, but it could make it a more useful armed sensor within layered counter-UAS defenses, particularly where endurance, low collateral effects, and cost per engagement are more important than speed.