WASHINGTON — The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced today it has received the second aircraft to be configured for the Army’s High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) initiative, meant to be the service’s next-gen high-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft.
“SNC’s HADES solution emphasizes rapid configurability, allowing the aircraft to be swiftly tailored to meet specific reconnaissance mission requirements,” Tim Harper, vice president of business development at SNC, said in a company release. “This capability ensures that the HADES jets can be deployed anywhere in the world within 24 hours’ notice, providing transformational improvements in speed, range, payload and endurance for the Army’s aerial ISR collection efforts.”
SNC is tasked with converting the second Global 6500 long-range business jet into a prototype of the surveillance platform. The company was named lead integrator for HADES after winning a 12-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity Army contract worth up to nearly $1 billion last year.
“Using government-furnished Bombardier Global 6500 jets, the HADES prototypes will be the first Army-owned, large-cabin business jets utilized as aerial ISR platforms,” the company release read. “The primary purpose of the aircraft is to provide advanced, deep-sensing capabilities for multi-domain operations against peer and near-peer adversaries. This system will give the Army enhanced and persistent deep sensing capabilities — flying higher, faster and farther.”
Initially, the service said it wanted to buy up to 12 HADES aircraft, but after acquisition shakeups spurred by the Army Transformation Initiative, it said it may be looking to buy only six, Breaking Defense reported in May. Army officials also said at the time that the service wants to have an initial aircraft ready for the force by the end of 2026 or early 2027.
SNC said it will continue to carry out the bulk of its HADES operations at the company’s facilities in Hagerstown, Md., where it is also working on another HADES-related RAPCON-X offering, known as the ATHENA-S program. The program will convert two different Bombardier Global 6500s into “ISR-as-a-service” platforms. (The HADES program differs because it is not a “as-a-service” initiative.)
Josh Walsh, SNC vice president of mission solutions and operations, said when the SNC contract was initially announced last year that SNC plans to reuse “about 90 percent” of the ATHENA-S engineering package for the HADES offering.