MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan -- Two RQ-4 Global Hawk aircraft arrived here the night of Thursday, July 2.

Two additional aircraft are scheduled to arrive at the base this week as part of the Global Hawk's second deployment to Misawa AB.

The unmanned aircraft are part of a scheduled rotation to Misawa, lasting from July to December 2015, along with approximately 40 personnel. The aircraft will begin local area checks prior to the first operational flight in early July.

The Global Hawk's mission is to provide a broad spectrum of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection capabilities to support joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and crisis operations. The system can be used to cooperatively address common regional challenges such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, piracy, terrorism and other issues affecting the region.