The fleet of five NATO reconnaissance drones has reached its Initial Operating Capability. This declared on February 15 by NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Tod Wolters.
The RQ-4D drones from US defence contractor Northrop Gumman, known as “Phoenix” in NATO jargon, are part of NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program. In addition to the air segment, this includes a ground and support segment. The surveillance system is stationed at Sigonella Air Base in Sicily. The RQ-4Ds are drones with a high flight altitude (over 16 kilometers) and long mission duration, which are used for surveillance and reconnaissance. With a length of 14.5 meters and a wingspan of 39.5 meters, an RQ-4D drone weighs 14,600 kilograms (maximum weight at take-off). Equipped with a Rolls Royce AE 3007H turbofan engine, it can reach speeds of up to 575 km/h. The drones are based on the Block 40 Global Hawk of the US Air Force and are equipped with advanced ground surveillance radars, the so-called Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP). The radar sensors make it possible to capture situational images of land and sea surveillance of mobile and stationary objects in all weather and light conditions in near real time.
The unmanned aerial vehicles are controlled from the mobile and deployable ground stations, where the collected data is processed and analyzed. The systems developed by Airbus ground stations are connected to each other and to a network of NATO command, control, information, surveillance and reconnaissance (C2ISR) information systems. Half of all NATO countries provide the financial and human resources (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the USA). However, all 30 NATO members are to contribute financially to the establishment of the AGS headquarters in Sigonella and to support the life cycle of the system. The intelligence data collected by the system will be available to all allies. According to NATO, the drones will be used for a wide range of international missions. These include the protection of ground troops and the civilian population, border control, maritime security, counter-terrorism, crisis management and humanitarian aid in the event of natural disasters. The now declared operational readiness of the surveillance program follows a process of more than ten years. Following the signing of the Program Memorandum of Understanding (PMOU) in February 2009 and subsequent rather sluggish progress, the program gained significant momentum in November 2019 with the delivery of the first drone to Sigonella. Six months later, on June 4, 2020, the first training and familiarization flight took place; just under three months ago, the last drone arrived at the Italian military base. Since then, a series of missions have taken place to test the system’s performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAGgZTYEBB8&feature=emb_title The work to establish the main AGS base in Sigonella is officially scheduled for completion by 2022. There is less specific information on when the system will be fully operational, but this is not surprising given the delays to date. What is certain is that AGS will be operated by a team of around 550 people on site when it is fully operational. This will be supported by personnel from Allied Command Operations (ACO) in Mons, Belgium, and NATO Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) in Ramstein, Germany. Before the AGS system is fully operational, however, a number of sensitive issues still need to be resolved. The most important of these, which has already been a topic of discussion in recent years, is the question of the safety certifications required to operate the drones in joint NATO airspace. In regulated airspace intended for civil aviation, unmanned military aircraft are only allowed to fly in the designated flight corridors after these have been temporarily closed to all other air traffic. Discussions about any safety risks and the regulations required to minimize them are inevitable.
