On Friday, May 15, 2026, the US Army Contracting Command (ACC) at Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, on behalf of the US Department of Defense, signed a 325,531,920 USD contract with Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of San Diego, part of Northrop Grumman, to develop a prototype universal payload architecture for the Range Hawk high-endurance autonomous unmanned aircraft to support hypersonic missile testing.
The Range Hawk is to be based on the RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 20 / Photos: USAF
Under the contract, the Range Hawk is intended for flight testing aimed at improving the agility and adaptability of high-speed systems test data collection, including prototype development, aircraft modification, sensor integration and logistics preparation for demonstration and validation.
Only one bid was received in the tender procedure. The work will be carried out at Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. facilities in San Diego, California, with an expected completion date of May 14, 2031. At the time of the contract award, 65,657,001 USD in initial research, development, test and evaluation funding was obligated under the FY2026 NDAA defense budget for the US Army.
Earlier, under the Range Hawk program, on May 12 this year, AeroVironment Inc. received a USD 43 million contract to develop the next-generation PANTHER, or Phased Array Next-gen Telemetry Hypersonic Emitter Receiver, phased-array transceiver for hypersonic telemetry. It will be a scalable, reconfigurable digital antenna for multiband tracking of multiple targets in autonomous mode.
As a reminder, on October 20, 2021, information emerged about plans to convert four RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 20 aircraft to the Range Hawk configuration under the SkyRange program. They will serve the Test Resource Management Center in support of telemetry data collection under hypersonic weapons programs, such as Dark Eagle with CPS, or Conventional Prompt Strike, missiles. It was later decided that 20 Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft planned for retirement would be converted for the program.
Range Hawk aircraft will have tasks and applications similar to those of the Lockheed NP-3D special-mission crewed aircraft and their successors, the NC-37B, based on the Gulfstream G550, operated by the US Navy. In the past, NP-3D aircraft were used to monitor tests under programs such as HyFly, or Hypersonics Flight Demonstration, in 2002–2008, and the Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike Flight Experiment-1, or CPS FE-1, in 2017.
It is worth adding that, in 2020, at least one RQ-4, registration number N874NA, previously operated by NASA, was converted for the SkyRange program as a test platform for the necessary modifications. The only photograph of the aircraft was published on September 4, 2020; see above.
Interestingly, Japan’s Global Hawks are being considered for adaptation to a somewhat similar role, although in the field of detecting hostile hypersonic missiles.