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U.S. steps up purchase of Global Hawk spy planes
http://www.circuitsassembly.com/departments/news/OEG20011210S0036
EE Times
December 11, 2001 (1:49 p.m.)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense has launched five new weapon
acquisition programs since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, including a $5.5
billion program to speed up purchases of Global Hawk unmanned spy planes.
According to a quarterly Pentagon summary of new and current acquisition
programs called the "selected acquisition report," the DOD launched plans
prior to the end of the Sept. 30 reporting period to buy an unspecified
number of the spy planes. The Pentagon announced in November that Global
Hawk had been deployed to southern Asia to help provide new reconnaissance
and surveillance capabilities over Afghanistan.
Global Hawk is a high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance aircraft capable of
flying 13,500 nautical miles and initially carrying a 2,000-pound payload.
It is designed to loiter over targets for extended periods, providing field
commanders with high-resolution, near-real-time imagery of large areas.
The spy plane was initially designed to carry synthetic aperture radar and
electro-optical/infrared sensor payloads. The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency has awarded a research contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to
develop a foliage-penetrating radar that could be applied to the aircraft.
Global Hawk is being built by Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ryan Aeronautical
Center (San Diego).
Other new acquisition programs listed in the Pentagon report include a radar
upgrade for Navy F/A-18 E/F fighter planes. Called the "active
electronically scanned array," the DOD estimated the initial cost of the
upgrade program to be nearly $2.4 billion.
A communications program launched during the period is intended to meet the
military's growing need for bandwidth as it attempts to transmit sensor and
targeting data in near real-time. Hence, the military has launched a
wideband communications satellite system called "Wideband Gapfiller" at an
initial cost of $894 million.
Together, DOD estimates that new acquisition programs will initially cost
$15 billion.
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