The Drone Iran Shot Down Was a $220M Surveillance Monster

WIRED

This article tells all the public facts about this incident,.No doubt they are plenty more we will never know about. 

Global Hawks are massive surveillance platforms, in operation since 2001, with a wingspan of more than 130 feet and a maximum takeoff weight of more than 16 tons. They have a range of more than 12,000 nautical miles, can fly at strikingly high altitudes of 60,000 feet, and can stay aloft for 34 hours straight.

"Part of the selling point is Global Hawks fly so high and normally they should be secure from being shot down," Franke says. "It’s not incredibly difficult to shoot down a system like that, but it’s comparatively difficult. It shows resolve on the political side."


Analysts say, though, that while it is not shocking that Iran possesses the intercept technology to shoot the drone down, it would have required a radar-guided, surface-to-air missile system—seemingly either an SA-6 or SA-17 SAM given to Iran by Russia.