In August 2000, the United States and Europe cooperated on the HALE UAV system, and NOGER signed an agreement with EADS. Both agreements put forward requirements for the ISR system based on HALE UAV, which can meet the needs of the German Ministry of Defence for wide-area surveillance in the air.
200 1 At the beginning of the year, 1 Global Hawk will be deployed in northern Australia to participate in joint training between the United States and Australia, and then they will fly over the Pacific Ocean.
On April 22nd, 20001year, Global Hawk completed its pioneering overseas flight from the United States to Australia. This is the first time that a drone has accomplished such a feat.
In the flight test conducted in April 20001year, the Global Hawk reached the flight altitude of19850m, and broke the mission flight record of the jet UAV with a battery life of 3 1.5 hours. This record was once a world record held by Compass Cope-R UAV for 26 years.
In 200 1 10, the US Air Force signed a bilateral project cooperation agreement with the German Ministry of Defence.
In 200 1, 1 1 year1October, the US military first launched the Global Hawk into a military strike against Afghanistan. In the Afghan war, rq-4 carried out 50 combat missions, flying 1000 hours, provided more than 1500 enemy target intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance images, and also indicated targets for low-flying predator drones.
In April 2002, Northrop Grumman won two contracts with a total amount of nearly 300 million US dollars to comprehensively improve the performance of the Global Hawk system. The improvement will increase the weight and strength of the Global Hawk.
In June 2002, after research, the US military thought that redesigning parts, ground stations and systems with low procurement performance was a feasible scheme to reduce the price of unmanned aerial vehicles. At present, the development cost, operating cost and other indirect costs are calculated together, and the unit price of Global Hawk and ground station is $73.7 million.
In June 2002, the US Senate and House of Representatives passed the project of exporting Global Hawk to Australia. The two houses said that the government can sell drones to other countries as long as it is not equipped with weapons and does not violate the US policy of restricting the proliferation of weapons.
In September 2002, Northrop Grumman decided to manufacture "enhanced" wings for Global Hawk, aiming at improving the load and durability of UAV. These wings are 65,438+00% bigger than they are now. The goal is to improve the performance of Global Hawk, achieve the goal of carrying 1360 kg payload to 18288 m in the air, and maintain its original voyage and airworthiness flight requirements.
In July 2003, the US Department of Defense began to plan to install a weapon system for the Global Hawk, which marked a change in the UAV policy of the Department of Defense.
In August 2003, the Integrated Systems Department of Northrop Grumman Company completed the manufacture of the first RQ-4A Global Hawk. After completing the last series of system tests, the aircraft will make its first test flight at the end of this month. At the same time, Northrop Grumman began the special flight test of Global Hawk, and plans to demonstrate its electronic intelligence reconnaissance mission capability in Germany in early June of 65438+ 10.
In August 2003, the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a national authorization certificate to the US Air Force, allowing the US Air Force's Global Hawk UAV system to perform tasks in domestic airspace, making Global Hawk the first UAV system in the United States to receive this honor.
In September 2003, Northrop Grumman Company began to develop and produce a new and more powerful improved RQ-4B.
From June 5438 to October 2003 10, under the leadership of German and American governments, with the support of Naugle and EADS, Global Hawk conducted flight demonstration and verification at the North Holtz Naval Base in Germany, and completed six successful test flights, which verified the feasibility of using unmanned aerial vehicles with various electronic intelligence sensors to perform wide-area surveillance tasks. This demonstration is also the first successful application of UAV in controlled airspace, Europe, paving the way for further development of unmanned flight in Europe in the future.
On June 5438+1October, 2004, the first RQ-4A rq-4 used in the US Navy Global Hawk Demonstration (GHMD) program flew from Palmdale, California to Edwards Air Force Base on June 65438+1October 6, 2004, and completed its first flight.
From June, 5438 to February, 2004, the cost of rq-4 tripled due to the Pentagon's request to enhance the performance of long-endurance UAV. The US General Accounting Office (GAO) suggested that the Pentagon reconsider the simultaneous development and production of new UAVs and postpone their procurement.
June 5438+October 2005 10, Raytheon Company has signed a contract to develop three sets of "Global Hawk" improved integrated sensors at a low price.
In March 2005, Northrop Grumman, Tenix Defence and Saab Systems announced that they would jointly develop a ground system for Australia, which would be integrated with Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk high-altitude long-endurance UAV.
In August 2005, Northrop Grumman received a contract from the US Air Force to provide two RQ-4A. The contract worth $265.438 million was awarded on June 2. These aircraft will join the ranks of the advanced concept technology verification "Global Hawk" UAV supporting the global anti-terrorism theater. The Global Hawk deployed so far has flown more than 4,300 combat hours in 200 missions. No electronic/infrared sensor system is added. However, a single synthetic aperture reconnaissance radar was tested and reconnaissance images were obtained.
In August 2005, Walter Aircraft Industry Company announced that it had delivered the first enhanced wing of the RQ-4B of the US Air Force to Northrop Grumman Company.
In August, 2005, the flight test of Global Hawk ended, which made the latest Global Hawk take another step towards actual combat.
In September 2005, according to Hurst, commander of the US Pacific Air Force stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, the US Air Force plans to deploy the high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle "Global Hawk" to the whole Pacific region.
In February 2005, Raytheon was awarded a new contract to produce ground equipment for Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk project.
From June, 5438 to February, 2005, the U.S. Navy's Global Hawk Demonstration (GHMD) UAV system was a modification of the RQ-4A Global Hawk system used by the U.S. Air Force, and GHMD participated in the U.S. Navy's military exercise for the first time. Code-named 2005 (Trident Warrior 05), the exercise lasted from165438+1October 28th to 65438+February 9th. Senior US Navy officials highly praised the performance of the Global Hawk UAV system in the exercise. It is considered that it is very important for the United States Navy to integrate the system in exercises like Trident Warrior to achieve its goal in Haiquan 2 1.
According to the US Air Force, the first batch of two RQ-4A "Global Hawk" high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance aircraft have arrived in the Middle East. Compared with the prototype "Global Hawk", the mass-produced "Global Hawk" UAV arrived in the Middle East this time is equipped with an improved sensor device.
In February 2006, the US Air Force is negotiating with countries in the Pacific region such as Australia, Japan, Singapore and Thailand, trying to establish a group to jointly use the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude long-endurance reconnaissance UAV system in this region and share the information it has obtained.
In March, 2006, the first Global Hawk (RQ-4A) UAV equipped by the US Navy flew to its new base-NAS in Patuxent River, Maryland.
In April, 2006, the Global Hawk)RQ-4A high-altitude long-endurance information UAV will participate in this year's Joint Expeditionary Force Test Exercise (JFEX 06), aiming at demonstrating the role of high-altitude long-endurance UAV equipped with advanced sensors in continuously collecting and distributing ISR (intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance) data at sea and enhancing maritime situation awareness.
In April 2006, Northrop Grumman delivered the sixth RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV to the US Air Force on April 5, and will deliver the seventh RQ-4 UAV to the Air Force this summer.
In May 2006, the German Department of Defense and the US Department of Defense signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the interoperability of the two systems in Berlin, which was a key step before the "European Eagle" project won the risk reduction contract as scheduled this fall, and laid the foundation for the cooperation between the German and American governments.
In July 2006, Northrop Grumman Company won a contract worth 90 million US dollars from the US Air Force, requiring that a new type of airborne surveillance radar be developed and integrated into rq-4 before September 2009, so as to provide unparalleled environmental awareness for battlefield commanders.
In July, 2006, Northrop Grumman announced the future operational concept of its RQ-4 rq-4 (unmanned aerial vehicle) for the first time at this Farnborough Air Show: detecting and tracking ballistic missiles and carrying out BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) missions.
By the end of July, 2006, the Global Hawk unmanned aerial system had completed more than 10500 hours of flight. In the flight of 654.38+100000 hours completed in June, the proportion of combat flight time to all flight time increased to 63%.
In August, 2006, Northrop Grumman's upgraded version of Global Hawk B UAV rolled off the assembly line as planned on August 25th.
In June 2006, the US Department of Defense announced yesterday that the cost of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft project of the Air Force increased by 2 1.4%.
In June, 2006, 5438+065438+1October, the 9th Reconnaissance Brigade of the US Air Force began to use the RQ-4 Global Hawk for the first time last week after 165438+1October/65438 UAV. This is the first time that the US Air Force can use the Global Hawk in US airspace only by applying for a flight plan.
June 5438+February 2006, Nuo? The company was awarded a fixed total price plus incentive amendment contract of $6.6 million, which will modify an RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft to equip it with MP-RTIP equipment.
From June, 5438 to February, 2006, Global Hawk completed the virtual use test on the northwest continental shelf of Australia, and submitted the results to the Australian Ministry of Defence this week.
In March 2007, the Air Combat Command (ACC) of the US Air Force is considering concentrating the operational use of RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude information UAV in Bill AFB, California.
In March 2007, the US Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth $287 million to develop the next batch (the fifth batch) of RQ-4 rq-4 systems.
In May, 2007, according to the notice of the US Department of Defense in May 18, the US Air Force is renewing the contract with the air combat system department of Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems Company, with a total amount of $3.7 14 to purchase five RQ-4s, three mission control units, three launch and recovery units and other related equipment. In order to carry out this work, 654.38+85.7 million dollars have been put in place, and all the work will be completed in March 2065.438+00. The air force began to apply for this job in March 2006, and it was only approved in May this year.
In July, 2007, Northrop Grumman Company announced that when the fourth production RQ-4 AF-4 manufactured for the U.S. Air Force carried out the task of supporting the global war on terrorism in mid-June, the U.S. Army's RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance fleet had completed its1000th flight.
In August 2007, the US Air Force proposed a new method to control the temperature in rq-4.
In August 2008, the US government informed the ROK that it agreed to sell RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned strategic reconnaissance aircraft to it.
On June 5438+ 10, 2008, according to officials of the US Department of Defense, the US Navy is considering deploying its first rq-4 to an air base near Iraq to verify its ability to carry out maritime reconnaissance missions.
In February, 2009, the US Air Force approved Northrop Grumman to start the flight test of radar system-level performance (RSLPV) of some multi-platform radar technology embedded projects (MP-RTIP).
In March 2009, according to Australia's new national defense white paper, the Royal Australian Air Force did not give up the purchase of RQ-4 rq-4 system. Around 20 17, the Royal Australian Air Force will purchase the Global Hawk.
During the 20 10 earthquake relief in Haiti, the Pentagon of the United States mobilized an RQ-4 "Global Hawk" reconnaissance plane from the battlefield in Afghanistan to take photos after the earthquake, and provided the photos taken by the spy plane to non-governmental organizations and other relief organizations so that they could understand the local situation more clearly.
20 1 1 March11day, after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the United States dispatched an RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance plane from the US military base in Guam on March 17 to take pictures of the damaged reactor.
On June 12, 1 1, an unmanned reconnaissance plane of the US Navy "Global Hawk RQ-4A" crashed near the coast of Salisbury, Maryland. Fortunately, no civilian or property losses were caused, and the cause of the accident is still under investigation.
On August 5, 20 12, the Japanese and American governments decided to use the unmanned reconnaissance plane "Global Hawk" to monitor the activities of Japanese warships and other government vessels in the waters near Diaoyu Island and Okinawa.