Feb 16 2011
The US Air Force has halved its orders for the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk. The savings will be diverted to enhancing capabilities of another model of the high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in the areas of electro-optical/infrared payload.
According to Major General Alfred Flowers, deputy assistant secretary for budget, the Block 40 programme, with a synthetic aperture radar, has been slashed from 22 to 11 aircraft. Each RQ-4 has displayed price hikes and performance lapses. The Block 30's EO/IR payload is the Raytheon enhanced integrated sensor system (EISS). Flight tests last year showed shortcomings in the sensor's image quality, leading to a halt on further acquisitions such as ground moving target sensing, sensor resolution quality and imagery-derived target geo-location for Blocks 20 and 30 versions, according to the DOT&E report.
Both the Block 40 and the Northrop E-8C joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS) can be applied to capture moving targets on the ground.
Source: http://airforce.com/