Airborne ISR

Northrop Grumman’s approach to advancing Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).

Mission Ready. Future Ready.

For Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (A-ISR), Northrop Grumman uses advanced technology and proven engineering capabilities to provide manned and unmanned, platform and payload agnostic solutions for actionable information around the clock.

Our digitally differentiated approach accelerates delivery, lowers risk, and ensures the best chance for mission success for the U.S. military and our international allies, designed for future adaptability and rapid upgrades as technologies mature and threats evolve.

Northrop Grumman builds on 50 years of airborne ISR expertise to support emerging requirements with rapid procurement, integration, testing, and deployment.

The FTUAS V-BAT was designed from the ground up for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) operations. It is the high-performance system required by high-performance Warfighters, and it embodies our dedication to persistent situational awareness and effectiveness in the battlespace. (Image provided by Shield AI).

The Value of Digital Differentiation

The Northrop Grumman team employs digitally differentiated engineering capabilities — eDesign, advanced modeling and simulation, digital twin – to rapidly evaluate and report on system performance in ever-changing environments.

The Value of Digital Transparency

These are encapsulated in a fully developed digital environment that provides total visibility into the weapons system, including design, testing, fielding, and sustainment for the duration of its lifecycle. This digital transparency affords direct collaboration and ownership of the digital twin.

Caption: We leverage digitally differentiated engineering capabilities to create a digital twin that enables our team to make changes in real time and visually see improvements. Northrop Grumman’s digital engineering innovation delivers 21st century capabilities that will keep our nation and allies safe for decades to come

Northrop Grumman’s next-generation airborne ISR technologies matched with our rapid technology insertion pathway emphasizes:

Mission Readiness – Harnessing digital logistics ecosystems to improve overall fleet health by utilizing advanced modeling and simulation, analytics, and real-time asset visibility. This persistent readiness ensures supply chain resiliency and optimized maintenance scheduling and sequencing.

Flexibility – Enabling future adaptability and rapid upgrades as technologies mature and threats evolve. Open systems architecture and modular design reduces risk, cost, and schedule across weapons system lifecycles.

Bringing platforms into the digital age to reduce long-term sustainment costs. We build a resilient digital ecosystem to connect disparate systems and processes in a secure data infrastructure.

The Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System – known as Joint STARS – is the only total weapons system of its kind. Joint STARS has provided air-to-ground battle management C2 and surveillance operations to U.S. combatant commands for more than 25 years in support of military operations, disaster relief, peacekeeping and counter-drug missions.