Global Hawk High-Altitude, Long-Endurance Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAV)

First time I saw this Global Hawk UAV system at 2010 Singapore Airshow, I was impressed with bulky cockpit area and it's technology to spy on enemy countries with ease.

Global Hawks uav system are builds on the common RQ-4 high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS).

Developed by Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, it can be equipped with a variety of available mission-specific sensors, to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) information over a vast geographic area without putting any pilots into a hostile territory.

Global Hawk was developed to provide a broad spectrum of ISR collection capability to support joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and wartime operations.

There are few types of Global Hawk system in operational. Most of the Global Hawk variant below are for ISR purpose, except for NASA Global Hawk (NASA Dryden) which is used by environmental science community such NOAA, NASA, Department of Energy, and universities

1. Global Hawk (U.S. Air Force)
2. GHMD (U.S. Navy)
3. Euro Hawk® (Germany)
4. NASA Global Hawk (NASA Dryden)
5. NATO AGS (U.S. and allied nations)

The systems can also be used for various civil and commercial missions such as border patrol, port surveillance, hurricane monitoring, disaster relief support, and high-altitude scientific research.

The systems complement manned and space reconnaissance systems by providing near-real-time coverage using imagery intelligence (IMINT) sensors, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and communications relay capability.