NATO says the fuselage of the first Global Hawk Block 40 unmanned aerial vehicle for the alliance has been completed by Northrop Grumman.

The fuselage was completed at a company facility in Mississippi and its being transferred to California, where production of the long-endurance aircraft will be completed.

"The UAVs will be equipped with a state-of-the-art, Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program ground surveillance radar sensor, as well as an extensive suite of line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight, long-range, wideband data links, NATO said.

The aircraft is for NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance project to provide intelligence to deployed and non-deployed operational personnel.

The air segment of the project will feature five Northrop Grumman Global Hawks and flight control stations, which will be located at the AGS main operating base at Sigonella Air Base in Italy.

The system's ground segment will consist of various ground stations for transmitting the data collected.

Participating in the project are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and the United States,