The U.S. Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. a $50 million contract to provide the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft program with an interim repair capability for its integrated sensor suite (ISS) and the enhanced integrated sensor suite (EISS). The interim repair line will be located and operated at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems (SAS) in El Segundo, CA. Raytheon SAS partnered with Northrop Grumman to provide the EISS imaging system for the Global Hawk Block 20 and 30 systems. The sensor interim repair line will be the first dedicated repair facility to be established by the U.S. Air Force for Global Hawk and will improve the availability of ISS and EISS components in support of increased operations tempo. The EISS will improve on the ISS capability with a more than 50% increase in range and resolution. As a result, the Air Force is predicting that combatant commanders will require Block 30 Global Hawks to fly many more hours than had been previously planned.
Global Hawk flies autonomously at altitudes of more than 60,000 ft, above inclement weather and prevailing winds, for more than 32 h at a time.