NATO Pod

The NATO Pod designed and manufactured by SENER Aeroespacial is an enclosure designed as the most versatile, flexible and multi-purpose complement for the MQ-9 (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The program is a joint effort of the two companies, in which SENER Aerospace specifies and designs the NATO Pod based on General Atomics' initial requirements.

Project design and scope

The MQ-9 will incorporate the NATO Pod for the European market with the purpose of complementing and increasing its capabilities, which will allow operators to easily incorporate payloads, including sovereign ones, reduce integration time and certification costs. In addition to design and manufacturing, the scope of the work conducted by SENER Aeroespacial includes acting as an integrator of payloads into a payload-agnostic certifiable enclosure in accordance with International standards-.

Capabilities

The NATO Pod is a multi-purpose and multi-mission enclosure that is flexible and scalable and ready to integrate payloads that supplement or add capabilities to the MQ-9:

• SIGINT (esp COMINT)
• IMINT (esp WAMI)
• Surviveability
• Anti-jam GPS
• Long-range radar
• Airborne Remote Sensing
• European Sovereignty
• Interoperability

These capabilities, supplemented or new, strengthen the MQ-9 system to carry out its border surveillance, maritime surveillance and anti-terrorism missions, as well as missions in the civil sector, such as fire detection and coordination. Thanks to the NATO Pod, all of them will benefit from enhanced performance, security and persistence.