Polar Hawk UAV to perform HALE security missions for Canada's Arctic territories
NewsJune 04, 2012
OTTAWA. Engineers at Northrop Grumman Corp. and L-3 MAS are joining hands to produce the Polar Hawk, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for Canada to have continuous surveillance of its Arctic regions. The new UAV will be a variant of Northrop Grumman?s Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE).
The new unmanned aircraft system (UAS) will be designed to stay aloft for extended periods of time in harsh weather over large expanses of the Earth's surface while monitoring ice, land, and open and littoral water environments throughout the Arctic. The Polar Hawk will fly at 60,000 feet and has a range of more than 22,000 kilometers and can stay airborne for more than 33 hours, night or day.
In addition to its surveillance payloads the UAV also can be equipped with a wide variety of instrumentation for performing science and environmental missions, such as those demonstrated by NASA on earlier versions of the Global Hawk UAS as far as 85 degrees north latitude. The Polar Hawk can support humanitarian missions and provide surveillance over all of Canada's territory stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic territorial waters and coasts.
