EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., June 17,
2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Northrop Grumman Corporation
(NYSE: NOC) successfully flew a new Open Mission Systems (OMS)
architecture on a NASA Global Hawk, demonstrating the ability to
rapidly and affordably adapt new capabilities onto unmanned
aircraft systems (UAS). The new architecture implementation flight
took place at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air
Force Base.
This flight confirmed the ability for ground operators to send
OMS payload commands and receive OMS subsystem status responses
over a Ku SATCOM Beyond-Line-Of-Sight (BLOS) communications link
between the unmanned aircraft and an operations center.
A previously developed OMS Critical Abstraction Layer (CAL) was
adapted to an OMS Open Computing Environment (OCE) onboard the NASA
Global Hawk using a production RQ-4 Global Hawk airborne database
computer.
The demonstration illustrates Northrop Grumman's ability to
rapidly deploy OMS on production Global Hawk platforms. The
architecture paves the way for integration of new payload options
for Global Hawk to support mission flexibility and customer needs.
In addition to flying on the NASA Global Hawk UAS, the OMS
architecture will be adapted and demonstrated in-flight on a manned
airborne weapons system later this month.
NASA Global Hawks are preproduction variants of RQ-4 Global
Hawks currently in service around the world. With the ability to
fly as high as 60,000 feet for over 30 hours, Global Hawks provide
a combination of high altitude and long endurance performance
capabilities that allow the science community to study scientific
and environmental phenomena in-depth. Global Hawk variants have
flown more than 150,000 flight hours in support of antiterrorism,
antipiracy, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, airborne
communications relay and information-sharing missions.
NASA and Northrop Grumman recently renewed a five-year Space Act
Agreement that includes operation of the NASA Global Hawk system to
conduct scientific experiments as well as technology
implementations such as this OMS demonstration.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing
innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems,
cyber, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and
commercial customers worldwide. Please visit
www.northropgrumman.com for more information.
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SOURCE Northrop Grumman Corporation