RQ-4 Global Hawk Modernized Ground Segment Comes in From the Cold

By Brooks McKinney

Since 2001, when the U.S. Air Force deployed the Northrop Grumman-developed RQ-4 Global Hawk — a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system— Air Force pilots and payload sensor operators have been managing the aircraft's intel-gathering activities from a legacy ground system. This has been a less-than-ideal condition for the operators and technology based on early 2000’s computing capabilities with limits to functionality.

But that's all changing under the company's Ground Segment Modernization Program (GSMP) contract with the Air Force.

"One of the primary benefits of GSMP is to get operators out of those jammed ground stations into a modern system," explained Stan Zipper, Northrop Grumman's program director for Global Hawk development. "This modernization program provides an opportunity to replace the aging hardware and software technology from the legacy ground control systems."