Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft arrive in North Dakota for hypersonic missile testing

At a ceremony hosted by United States Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), the arrival of all 20 of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft to Grand Sky, North Dakota was cheered, as it marks the next step in the Sky Range hypersonic missile testing program.

Sky Range seeks to replace an aging fleet of ships in the Pacific Ocean that the U.S. utilizes for hypersonic missile testing. Hoeven has balked at the use of the ships previously, noting that by using them, the DoD takes weeks to deploy and position for testing, meaning that only a handful of tests can be conducted annually. Such testing also comes at significant cost, and the senator argued that by replacing the ships with the Global Hawks, the federal government would be able to deploy tests quicker and in more locations — both more frequently and at lower cost.

“With the arrival of these Global Hawk Block 30s, the Sky Range program is moving full steam ahead to transform the way our nation tests hypersonic missiles,” Hoeven said. “This is critical to the future security of our country, and Grand Forks is at the center of this effort due to the unmatched UAS ecosystem that we’ve built and the partnerships that we’ve established in this region. These put us in a strong position as we made the case to DoD for bringing the Global Hawk fleet to Grand Sky for Sky Range, and we appreciate the hard work of Director Rumford in making this program a reality.”

George Rumford, director of the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), joined Hoeven to celebrate the planes’ arrival. The TRMC administers the infrastructure for testing U.S. weapons systems.

Transfer of the new aircraft was made possible by an agreement secured between Hoeven and the Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown. That same arrangement guaranteed additional investments into Grand Forks in support of future missions. Separately, the area has also benefited from a DoD contract awarded to Northrop Grumman last year, which called for conversion of four Global Hawk Block 20s into Range Hawk aircraft with sensors to support hypersonic missile testing. The conversion was based at Grand Sky.