A Global Hawk, the Department of Defense?s newest unmanned air vehicle, sits in a hangar before its roll out. Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial reconnaissance system that will provide military field commanders with high-resolution, near-real-time imagery of large geographic areas. The Global Hawk is optimized for low-to-moderate threat, long endurance reconnaissance missions where range, endurance, and persistent coverage are paramount. The Global Hawk system can survey, in one day, an area equivalent to the state of Illinois (40,000 square nautical miles), while providing imagery with a three-foot resolution. Alternatively, the system can provide more detailed spot images of one-foot resolution when needed. DOD Photo courtesy David Gossett, Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical.