The STII is an airborne network extension pod that enhances cross-domain communication capabilities and links communications between disparate forces. Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 24 (UX 24) is integrating the pod on the USMC’s MQ-9s.
The U.S. Marine Corps’ pursuit to make its MQ-9 Reaper drones relevant and survivable, transforming them into vital communications and signals relay platforms for a high-end fight against China in the western Pacific, just got a boost. NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) announced on Mar. 10, 2025, that the Navy’s MQ-9 Reaper test squadron at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, received the first SkyTower II (STII) pod, “in preparation for the system’s initial operational capability (IOC) next year.”
The statement said that, on Feb. 25, 2025, that Air Test and Evaluation (UX) 24 loaded the new pod onto the aircraft and conducted initial power on checks. After a number of tests, the was aircraft hoisted for the first time in the large anechoic chamber at Pax River as a risk reduction for the upcoming program, proving the ability to “safely hang the aircraft while providing power, cooling and satellite link.”
STII, developed by GALT, a small business prime vendor, is an “airborne network extension pod that enhances cross-domain communication capabilities and links communications between disparate forces.” According to NAVAIR’ description, it can execute ISR concept of operations with “tactically relevant operational communications and data sharing capabilities with many forces in support of the MQ-9 Reapers’ operational mission.”
The USMC had already identified one RDESS/SOAR (Reaper Defense Electronic Support System/Scalable Open Architecture Reconnaissance) in 2024, which has been tested on the Air Force’s own Reapers in 2021. The SkyTower II therefore is a rapidly prototyped system to satisfy the U.S. Marine Corps’ needs in the Pacific Ocean’s vast distances.
The Marine Corps MQ-9 Reaper test squadron, UX-24, at Pax River has successfully integrated the first SkyTower II pod, enhancing communication and ISR capabilities. These upgrades will support critical missions in 2026 and beyond. pic.twitter.com/9Ze8ITZHwm
— NAVAIR (@NAVAIRNews) March 10, 2025
The STII pod integration
According to NAVAIR, “the tests proved the ability to safely hang the aircraft while providing power, cooling and satellite link with the aircraft for communications, command and control.” Other tests will follow over the next few months, before upgraded MQ-9s are delivered to the fleet.
In the two images released by NAVAIR, the MQ-9 in the hangar is shown with the STII pod not yet under its wing, but on the trolley, possibly before it was loaded. The pod is also not visible in the photo where the MQ-9 is suspended from the roof in the anechoic chamber, with the wing hardpoints missing.
Capt. Dennis Monagle, the Multi-Mission Tactical UAS program manager said in the NAVAIR release the delivery of the SkyTower II pod “marked a major milestone” in its two-year development journey, where the middle-tier acquisition from GALT allowed accelerated innovation.
“With robust system and integration testing now underway, we remain on track to achieve initial operating capability this year, delivering critical capability to the U.S. Marine Corps and the joint forces,” Capt. Monagle added. “The team has been able to accomplish a lot of work in a very compressed timeline by developing and executing these test plans for the chamber event and STII testing,” added Cmdr. Lauren Lawson, MQ-9 government flight test director.
MQ-9A Reaper system and capabilities
NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) describes the MQ-9A Reaper as a MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) UAV, capable of performing “multi-mission ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) missions over land or sea.” The MQ-9A can touch distances of 2,574 km (1,600 miles) with an endurance of more than 20 hours. Adding external fuel tanks, each holding 589 kg (1,300 pounds) of fuel, can enhance that range and endurance.
While announcing the first flight of an MQ-9A Reaper from VMUT-2 (Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Training Squadron 2) “Night Owls” at MCAS Cherry Point on Nov. 21, 2024, the Marine Corps said the MQ-9A can carry an external payload of 1,361 kg on six wing hardpoints. The aircraft has a MTS-B EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infrared) turret, a Lynx Multi-mode Radar, a Multi-mode Maritime Radar, an Automated Identification System and communications relay systems.
Marine MQ-9s in the Indo-Pacific
The service began looking at the Reaper since a Group 5 drone was more suited for the Extended Range Marine Air-Ground Task Force’s (MAGTF) Unmanned Expeditionary Medium-Altitude High-Endurance (MUX) concept that emerged around 2016.
According to Marine Times, the Block 5 sub-variant enables “future Marine Corps, naval, and joint force operating concepts by providing multisensor surveillance and reconnaissance; data gateway and relay capabilities through an aerial layer; and enabling or conducting the detection and engagement of targets during expeditionary, joint, and combined operations.” The smaller RQ-21A Blackjack offers limited capabilities in these areas.
In the latest release, NAVAIR adds that the “MQ-9 Reaper provides Marines with a long-range ISR capability in support of maritime domain awareness and expeditionary advanced base operations in contested environments.” This would suit the USMC’s Force Design concept, involving small teams of island-hopping Marines under the MLRs (Marine Littoral Regiments) within the Marine Expeditionary Forces, undertaking long-range precision fires on PLA Navy shipping from friendly features in the South and East China Seas.
The service had therefore been seriously looking at the MQ-9A Reaper as an enhanced airborne persistent ISR, ELINT/COMINT/SIGINT (Electronic/Communications/Signals Intelligence), with communications relays and targeting component in ‘kill-chains’ towards this strategy.
The USMC also announced the MQ-9A Reaper reaching IOC (Initial Operational Capability) with the Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU-3) at Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii on Aug. 2, 2023. A year later, in Jun. 2024, MQ-9A Reapers from VMU-3, under the I MEF (I Marine Expeditionary Force), were reported to be operating from the Philippines’ Basa Air Base.
At the Aug. 2023 ceremony at Kaneohe Bay, commanding officer of the Marine Air Group (MAG-24) Col. William G. Heiken said they see the “MQ-9A as a game-changing capability (serving) as the airborne quarterback for littoral maneuver elements from the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment.”
RDESS/SOAR Pod
U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith had shed interesting light on the MQ-9A Reaper’s pod in a talk hosted by the Brookings Institute in Jul. 2024, calling it the RDESS/SOAR (Reaper Defense Electronic Support System/Scalable Open Architecture Reconnaissance) system. Developed by General Atomics and L3Harris, it was first initially tested by the Air Force in 2021, but it is not clear when the Marine Corps acquired it.
The War Zone quoted General Atomics, saying the pod “is a broad spectrum, passive Electronic Support Measure (ESM) payload designed to collect and geo-locate signals of interest from standoff ranges.” Gen. Smith added in the Brookings talk: “What they bring with them is a sensing and making-sense capability. Some of the pods that go on our MQ-9s are classified.”
He also added that the pod “can mimic things that are sent to it that it detects, turn it around and send it back. So it becomes a…black hole…mostly undetectable.” Responding to a question about whether he was referring to an electronic decoy and spoofing tactic that scrambles adversary radar emissions, Smith said, “On the MQ-9…without crossing classifications levels, it has the ability to somewhat disappear off of an enemy radar.”
In the Northern Edge 2021 exercise held in May 2021 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, the Air Force said that the 556h Test and Evaluation Squadron (556th TES) operated the MQ-9 Reaper out of Eielson AFB and tested the hardened RDESS pod as a part of its TIPs (Tactics Improvement Proposals).
At the time, the pod was the only one of its kind, offering “electro-optical counter-counter measure,” and “providing the MQ-9 the ability to find and detect threats in the Northern Edge environment.” The pod then appeared on Jun. 20, 2024 at MCAS Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii where it completed the preflight checklist during the first Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Launch and Recovery (SLR) mission.
