>>64213459
A Pontiac Fiero with a fiberglass kit-car Ferrari body doesn't make it a Ferrari. It's all about what's under the skin ;^)


It's the ISR counterpart to the B-21. Just like QUARTZ/AARS/TIER III was the ISR counterpart to the B-2. It looks like NG's Sensorcraft (see pic), as it's lineage is NG's SensorCraft. Basically a Very Low Observable (VLO) flying wing RQ-4 Global hawk/JSTARS used for ELINT/SIGINT, Electronic Attack (EA), and ISR tasks. It uses metamaterials and Conformal Load-Bearing Antenna Structures (CLAS) to make the whole airframe one giant very sensitive, high gain X-Band radar able to 'see' 360 degrees in both air-to-air mode and air-to-ground mode. Air-to-ground uses that radar in SAR mode, allowing it to penetrate canopies (nets, foliage, etc.) to find targets. It being a HUGE X-band gives it the ability in Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) to map the whole battle space, and everything in it, at a very high resolution of <4 inches. Here are some articles, presentations, and papers on the information above:

>Sensorcraft LOBSTAR CLAS:
https://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/print/1695-northrop-grumman-airborne-antenna-offers-better-look-at-ground-targets
https://investor.northropgrumman.com/news-releases/news-release-details/northrop-grummans-load-bearing-antennas-offer-airborne
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA428754.pdf
https://www.slideserve.com/aldona/advanced-structural-concepts-branch-overview
>Paper on CLAS uses:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA470328.pdf
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA412866.pdf