Nichols Martin
Northrop Grumman has delivered the first operational MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system to the U.S. Navy‘s facility in Point Mogu, California.
The company said Friday MQ-4C is built to provide a 360-degree coverage area for Navy intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Northrop aims to provide a second unit to the military branch before the end of the year.
The Navy’s Unmanned Patrol Squadron 19 maintenance detachment at Point Mogu will prepare the first two MQ-4C aircraft for a scheduled deployment to Guam sometime in 2018.
Triton UAS is designed to operate for up to 24 hours at an altitude of 55,000 feet and help operators obtain maritime domain awareness with the platform’s vessel detection, tracking and classification tools.
The service branch ordered 68 MQ-4Cs from Northrop.
