{"id":80943,"date":"2026-01-04T10:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T05:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=80943"},"modified":"2026-01-05T16:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:19:23","slug":"rq-170-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/rq-170-sentinel\/","title":{"rendered":"RQ-170 Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>RQ-170 Sentinel Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A rare U.S. Air Force RQ-170 \u201cSentinel\u201d stealth surveillance drone was recently spotted returning to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in eastern Puerto Rico, following U.S. military strikes conducted overnight against targets in Venezuela.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About RQ-170 Sentinel<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an<\/span><b> American high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was designed and <\/span><b>manufactured by Skunk Works, a division of Lockheed Martin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (an American defense and aerospace manufacturer), <\/span><b>for the United States Air Force (<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">USAF).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is designed to execute <\/span><b>intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) and electronic warfare missions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over a target area.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The aircraft <\/span><b>entered service in the mid-2000s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and has previously been associated with U.S. operations in the Middle East and Asia.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>RQ-170 Sentinel <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has a wingspan of 20 m and a length of 4.5 m.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It features a <\/span><b>flying-wing design optimized for reduced radar visibility<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>long-endurance flights.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It features a blended fuselage, pointed nose, and tricycle-type landing gear.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An <\/span><b>electro-optic camera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was incorporated beneath the front fuselage section to <\/span><b>seize real-time imagery or videos of the battlefield<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> it is surveying.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can capture real-time imagery of the battlefield and <\/span><b>transfer the data to the ground control station (GCS) through a line of sight (LOS) communication data link.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is fitted with an active electronically scanned array radar, synthetic aperture radar, and signal intelligence in its belly fairings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About 90% of the aircraft is made up of composite materials to decrease its overall weight.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/defence-blog.com\/rare-rq-170-stealth-drone-used-during-u-s-strikes-on-venezuela\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RQ-170 Sentinel is a U.S. high-altitude UAV by Lockheed Martin for ISTAR and electronic warfare missions, in service since the mid-2000s. Read more about  RQ-170 Sentinel, Features, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":81086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,4553,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-80943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-rq-170-sentinel","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}