U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) pushed last week for the inclusion of a new remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) mission at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota.
Hoeven touted the base’s ability to host the RPA mission during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs hearing on Thursday and in a meeting earlier in the week with Air Force officials.
“The Air Force will be going through a process to determine where to base additional unmanned aircraft, so I’m making the case both to Assistant Secretary (Miranda) Ballentine, of the Air Force, and the head of Air Combat Command General Carlisle, that Grand Forks Air Force Base is the right location,” Hoeven said. “We have everything and more for unmanned aerial systems, making us the right base.”
In making his case, Hoeven cited Grand Forks Air Force Base’s existing Global Hawk mission, Custom and Border Protection’s use of the MQ-1 along northern border, the Grand Sky unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) technology and business park, and the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace at the University of North Dakota.
Ballentine said that the Air Force would announce criteria for selecting the RPA mission’s base in the coming weeks. Bases will then be narrowed down this spring, with complete scoring conducted during the summer.