The U.S. Air Force is accelerating its timeline for a cheaper, expendable successor to the MQ-9A Reaper after combat losses in the war against Iran left the service unwilling to wait out the remainder of the drone’s operational life, officials said September 3.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer, told reporters at the Pentagon that a follow-on aircraft was already under discussion as the MQ-9 fleet ages. “Although we have plenty of MQ-9As today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us,” Niemi said, according to Breaking Defense, which covered the briefing.
A Fleet Depleted by War
The new aircraft, called the Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMA, is being developed in response to steep Reaper losses sustained during Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran that began February 28, 2026. A Congressional Research Service Insight updated May 13 cited an April 9 news report putting losses at 24 Reapers since the operation began, and said it remained unclear whether the Pentagon had given Congress a full accounting. The Washington Post reported August 13, citing three U.S. officials, that at least 45 Reapers had been lost — roughly 25% of the entire fleet.
That toll builds on testimony Air Force officials gave lawmakers earlier this year. Lt. Gen. David Tabor told the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland in May that the fleet had fallen to about 135 aircraft, some 54 below the service’s long-standing 189-aircraft floor. Niemi did not offer an updated inventory figure at the September 3 briefing.
Despite the losses, Air Force leadership has credited the Reaper with playing an outsized role in the six-week campaign. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach told the House Armed Services Committee on May 20 that the MQ-9 was “perhaps the most valuable player” of Epic Fury, adding, “We’ve made many, many strikes” and that “no other platform is even close to the MQ-9.” The U.S. military struck more than 13,000 targets in Iran during the campaign, which ran from late February to an April 7 ceasefire, according to the Congressional Research Service.
No Easy Way to Backfill the Losses
Replacing the lost aircraft has proven difficult. General Atomics, the Reaper’s manufacturer, shut down MQ-9A production in 2025, and Tabor told senators in May the service was pursuing only a short-term buy of existing airframes in fiscal 2026. Niemi said September 3 that budget constraints make purchasing a large number of upgraded MQ-9B SkyGuardians unrealistic, calling it a misconception that the Air Force could simply “write a check and take delivery of 100 aircraft.”
A single Reaper with a full sensor package can cost up to $50 million, Niemi told a Senate subcommittee in May. Using that figure, the 24 Reapers reported lost as of the spring represented as much as $1.2 billion in destroyed airframes — more than the roughly $996.5 million the Air Force has requested for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
The Massed Modular Aircraft Program
Niemi signed requirements for a cheaper, modular, mass-producible aircraft in May. That effort, the Massed Modular Aircraft program, opened as a Defense Innovation Unit competition on July 7 with the Air Force as a partner. In its solicitation, the DIU framed the shift as a break from decades of relying on small numbers of expensive aircraft. “For decades, the Joint Force has relied on low-density, high-value, ‘exquisite’ (>$30M) manned and unmanned aircraft,” the DIU stated. “In a high-end fight, this model is simply unsustainable. To win, we must design for, and accept, inevitable attrition while retaining the advantage.”
The solicitation, which closed July 23, called for a drone capable of flying Reaper-class strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and communications-relay missions cheaply enough to absorb combat losses. Requirements included a minimum payload of 2,800 pounds — slightly below the Reaper’s 3,800-pound capacity — a payload-carrying combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles, and an 8,000-nautical-mile one-way ferry range.
Pricing the New Aircraft
Niemi now prices the MMA against the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, program. He put CCA air vehicles at close to $20 million apiece and the MMA at roughly half that, Defense Daily reported. An Air Force spokesperson clarified that those figures cover only the air vehicle itself, not a fully missionized aircraft, according to Breaking Defense. At the September 3 briefing, Niemi said the Air Force will probably field at least 180 MMA drones.
Niemi argued that the Reaper’s operational value has never come from the airframe itself. “What makes the MQ-9 special has nothing to do with the aircraft itself,” he said, describing its speed, altitude and range as decades-old technology. He said initial MMA versions will rely on proven technology rather than new systems to hit the target price, describing a long-aspect-wing turboprop design in the “4,000 miles-type class” — longer-ranged and heavier than a CCA, though slower. Officials did not explain how that range class relates to the 8,000-nautical-mile ferry range specified in the July solicitation.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink directed the acceleration of the program’s timeline, Defense Daily reported, with the fiscal 2031 target of fielding 20 mission-ready aircraft potentially pulled forward by about two years.
Industry Response Takes Shape
General Atomics, which built the Reaper, is bidding a design it calls Wildfire for the MMA competition, first reported by Aviation Week in August. Company spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Air & Space Forces Magazine the design “meets every wish on the [MMA] list and exceeds most of them,” though he declined to disclose capabilities or cost, and the company has not released images of the aircraft.
Brinkley told The War Zone in August that treating the MMA program strictly as a Reaper replacement misses the more urgent need for an interim backfill. He said Wildfire does not depend on winning the competition to move forward, adding, “we can deliver Wildfires years earlier than the current schedule.” He described the company’s internal design targets — rather than formal specifications — as including a 10,000-nautical-mile ferry range, four Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, and a configuration allowing 100 aircraft to operate under semi-autonomous control.
General Atomics is not the only company positioning itself for the program. Swarm Aero announced August 10 it had secured more than $10 million in contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory to advance high-rate composite manufacturing technology, aimed at producing a mass-produced Group 5 drone that could compete for the Reaper successor role.
Timeline and What Comes Next
Col. Todd Dye, senior materiel leader in the Air Force’s medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance division, said awards for MMA concept refinement were expected in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Breaking Defense reported. Air Force officials separately said in late July that the concept refinement phase would bring both traditional and nontraditional vendors into early analysis to help shape the aircraft’s design, requirements and cost. Officials did not announce a new fielding date at the September 3 briefing.
The push to replace the Reaper comes even as Congress has pressed Air Force leadership over the mismatch between its praise for unmanned platforms and its budget priorities. During the May 20 hearing, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., told Wilsbach, “you spoke very passionately when you answered the chairman’s question about UASs and their future,” but noted the service’s fiscal 2027 budget request still directs the bulk of aircraft funding toward crewed fighters such as the F-35 and F-47. Air Force leadership maintained it has no intention of abandoning the Reaper platform and is actively working to backfill the losses sustained over Iran.
For now, the Air Force faces a gap between an aircraft it has publicly credited as indispensable to its most intensive air campaign in decades and a production line that no longer exists. The Massed Modular Aircraft program represents the service’s attempt to close that gap not by building a better Reaper, but by building an aircraft cheap and numerous enough that further losses can be absorbed rather than mourned.