 Current thinking on the Global Hawk AESA is also placing increased emphasis on providing airborne search functions to the system to allow the UAV to operate as an "airborne early warning (AEW)" platform.Raytheon and Northrop Grumman were awarded a contract for the MP-RTIP system in late 2000, with Raytheon to build the AESA and the Northrop Grumman to perform systems integration.The Global Hawk was selected as the initial target system for MP-RTIP, with initial flight tests in 2005.