A Mississippi Hawk Takes Shape: Northrop Grumman says that the company’s new unmanned systems center in Moss Point, Miss., has begun assembling the center’s first Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle right on schedule, despite last year’s disastrous hurricane season. The plant is working on the 17th Global Hawk produced since program inception in 1995. Company officials report that, as of mid-July, the high-flying UAV has flown more than 6,000 combat hours for the war on terrorism.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…