As per Northrop Grumman, production of an enhanced version of the Global Hawk Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) Block 40 Global Hawk, intended for use by NATO for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, has begun in early December 2013. Northrop Grumman was awarded the contract in May 2012 to develop the system. The NATO variant of the Global Hawk has a maximum operating altitude of up to 60,000 feet with endurance to perform missions for more than 30 hours. NATO will use the system to improve its joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability.
Acquisition of the system by NATO includes 15 participating nations including the United States, Germany, Italy and Poland. EADS Deutschland GmbH (Cassidian), Selex ES and Kongsberg and several other aerospace and defence companies are part of the industry team developing the AGS system. NATO will also use the aircraft to provide maritime situational awareness with both military and civil military missions as well as humanitarian relief operations. The NATO AGS system is equipped with data links to enable both line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight operations. One of its missions will be to provide constant airborne ground surveillance to the NATO Alliance.