FARNBOROUGH 2002 AIR SHOW, FARNBOROUGH, U.K., July 23, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NYSE:NOC) Integrated Systems sector announced plans today 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. Global Hawk is currently in low-rate initial production for the Air Force and has provided critical support to combat operations in Afghanistan. The Navy is procuring two Global Hawk systems to explore the potential for maritime surveillance capabilities to the fleet.
Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is a premier aerospace systems integration enterprise. Integrated Systems has the capabilities to design, develop, integrate, produce and support complete systems, as well as airframe subsystems, for airborne surveillance and battle management, early warning, airborne electronic warfare and air combat aircraft. It is also integrating these capabilities for emerging network-centric warfare concepts.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an $18 billion, global defense company with its worldwide headquarters in Los Angeles. Northrop Grumman provides technologically advanced, innovative products, services and solutions in defense and commercial electronics, systems integration, information technology and nuclear and non-nuclear shipbuilding and systems. With nearly 100,000 employees and operations in 44 states and 25 countries, Northrop Grumman serves U.S. and international military, government and commercial customers.
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