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.


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

The Value of Digital Differentiation
The Value of Digital Transparency
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.