Global Hawk Ground Station Modernization Program completes first flight
NewsDecember 23, 2020
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. Northrop Grumman Corporation announced it has completed the first flight for the Global Hawk Ground Station Modernization Program (GSMP) at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. earlier this month. Leveraging agile development and an open architecture design, the GSMP team redesigned both the human-machine interface and the underlying software.
The modernization program is intended to pave the way for interoperability with other Air Force systems, enhanced responsiveness to ad hoc tasking, and lower impact updates in the future.
The modernized Global Hawk ground stations will aim to revamp the operator experience with new cockpit displays, the ability to fly all Global Hawk variants without software or configuration changes, simpler maintenance interfaces, and improved situational awareness and environmental conditions for pilots and sensor operators.
Northrop Grumman’s family of autonomous HALE systems, including Global Hawk, are a component of networked, global ISR collection. According to the company, Global Hawk operates on the edge of the battlespace, collecting ISR data that enables decision makers to act.
