Northrup Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, California, has been awarded a $12,641,680 firm-fixed-price modification to contract FA8620-15-C-3001 for initial aircraft spares to assist in sustainment purposes of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Work will be performed in San Diego, California, and is expected to be completed May 30, 2022. This contract is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Foreign Military Sales in the full amount will fund this contract. The U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
Northrop Grumman had been awarded a contract worth more than $657 million to provide South Korea with a surveillance fleet of four Block 30-standard RQ-4B Global Hawks unmanned air vehicles, enhanced integrated sensor suite mission payloads “and the applicable ground control environment elements. South Korea is placing an increasingly heavy emphasis on Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). Existing requirements include a new Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) programme and two additional airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) aircraft.
The Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, remotely-piloted, surveillance aircraft. It was initially designed by Ryan Aeronautical (now part of Northrop Grumman), and known as Tier II+ during development. The Global Hawk performs duties similar to that of the Lockheed U-2. The RQ-4 provides a broad overview and systematic surveillance using high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and long-range electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensors with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 km2) of terrain a day, an area the size of South Korea or Iceland.
