Northrop Grumman has started flight testing a new radar for the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle—using a high-flying Proteus aircraft stand-in—that will give commanders better situational awareness, combat target identification, target tracking, and time-critical tracking. Called the multi-platform-radar technology insertion program sensor, the airborne surveillance radar flew for the first time on a high-altitude Proteus aircraft for two hours at 22,000 feet flying as fast as 100 knots, according to a Northrop Grumman press release. Northrop, which previously tested the pod alone on the Proteus, has a $90 million contract to integrate the MP-RTIP with its Global Hawk.
An April 16 explosion destroyed a building at Northrop Grumman’s Innovation Systems plant in Promontory, Utah, where the company makes solid rocket motors for the U.S. government and commercial rocket companies.