Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Systems sector has announced plans to produce a company-funded Global Hawk advanced technology demonstrator. Long-lead procurement will begin this year, and the company expects the vehicle will be completed in 2004.
“This decision illustrates our commitment to the Global Hawk program, which is truly a transformational capability,” said Scott J. Seymour, corporate vice president and president, Integrated Systems.
“As the utility and demand for unmanned systems such as Global Hawk expand, we must be able to evaluate their application towards meeting a broad spectrum of current and future operational requirements.
“Northrop Grumman will utilize this demonstrator to rapidly prototype and evaluate innovative new system capabilities and employment concepts, including advanced payloads, communication and exploitation architectures, which have the capability to generate high leverage warfighting effects,” Seymour said.
The U.S. Air Force RQ-4A Global Hawk is a high-altitude, unmanned aerial reconnaissance system that operates autonomously from takeoff to landing. Flying at altitudes up to 65,000 feet with endurance of more than 30 hours, Global Hawk provides multisensor intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance information to the warfighter.
