On 15 February, NATO declared initial operational capability (IOC) for its Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) capability. Located at Main Operating Base (MOB) Sigonella in Sicily, AGS is comprised of air and ground elements that are collectively owned and operated by all NATO states, with all members having access to its data. The air element is five Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 40-derived RQ-4D Phoenix high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These are equipped with Northrop Grumman's Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) radar (designated AN/ZPY-2 in US Air Force service), which is an X-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) sensor with a ground-moving target indicator, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR), air track, concurrent moving target indication, cued search, and ground high-resolution radar modes.
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