Air Force Plans Support Contract That Could Keep RQ-4s Flying Into 2030s

The Air Force is planning to award Northrop Grumman a contract that could allow the RQ-4 Global Hawk to keep flying into 2033.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center posted a presolicitation notice Aug. 17 saying it plans to award Northrop a sole-source contract for development, modernization, retrofit, and sustainment of the surveillance drone.

Those support activities include program management, hardware and software upgrades and sustainment, engineering and onsite support, logistics, training development and administration, and other test and integration activities.

In its 2026 defense policy bill, Congress barred the Air Force from retiring any of its remaining nine RQ-4s until the end of fiscal 2030. This new notice suggests the service could be planning to fly them longer than that.

This contract will last for as long as five and a half years, beginning in January 2028 and potentially running until the end of June 2033. It will include a one-year base period and four one-year ordering periods, taking the contract through the end of 2032, as well as an option to extend the deal up to six more months.

The notice did not say how much the contract might be worth. An Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that cost information was not available for release. AFLCMC said in the notice that it plans to issue a solicitation in September, with responses expected by February 2027.

The RQ-4, which is made by Northrop Grumman, is a strategic long-endurance, high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unmanned aircraft. It can capture imagery or signals intelligence or conduct ground moving target indication. 

The Air Force at one point had 33 RQ-4s, some of which were forward deployed to places like Yokota Air Base, Japan; Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; or installations in the Middle East. But the Global Hawk fleet started shrinking in earnest in the early 2020s as the Air Force sought to divest older models.

In 2022, the service announced plans to retire the entire fleet by 2027. Congress intervened, however, and has extended its prohibition on retirements several times, most recently through 2030.

An Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine the service no longer has a projected retirement date for the RQ-4.

“To ensure operational continuity, this contract is structured with a one-year base period of performance followed by individual, one-year option periods,” the spokesperson said. “This structure grants Air Force leadership the flexibility to sustain the fleet as needed up to 2032, without committing to the full duration up front.”