Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk Participates in NATO Exercise 

Photo courtesy Northrop Grumman

 By Priya Potapragada



Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk participated in Unified Vision 2014, NATO's largest trial of Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities. The exercise is meant to demonstrate and evaluate how the alliance coordinates and deploys allied ISR systems.



U.S. European Command, with NATO support, flew the high-altitude long-endurance Block 30 Global Hawk UAS for three days from Orland Main Air Station in Norway. The 10-day trial included satellites, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, naval vessels, ground sensors and human intelligence from 18 NATO countries.



Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance system, which comes from the Global Hawk. 



"This exercise demonstrated the powerful role unmanned systems can play in helping NATO conduct its future ISR operations," says Jim Edge, general manager for the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Management Agency. "It was great to see how existing airspace procedures enabled the seamless integration of a NATO AGS into European airspace for this trial."



Northrop Grumman and its European industry team held simulations of NATO AGS and daily live data surveillance products from their systems for the Joint Force Commander.



NATO AGS is able fly at 60,000 feet for more than 30 hours.



NATO is acquiring the system with 15 nations participating, including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States.