on 19 December 2015 The programme originated in NATO's Defence Planning Committee in 1992, with the capability acquisition being defined in 1995. It was initially intended to be based on already existing or in development ground surveillance assets, later also including systems based on American or European
radar. These approaches failed to obtain sufficient support however. From 2016 to 2019, a number of test flights took place in order to develop and test AGS capabilities. These included the first
remote controlled flight from the AGS Main Operating Base in Sigonella at the end of 2017. One arrived at
Edwards Air Force Base on December 19, 2015 completing its first flight and the rest stayed in
plant 42 located in Palmdale. In July 2017, the USAF assigned the Mission Designation Series (MDS) of RQ-4D to the NATO AGS air vehicle. The first RQ-4D aircraft arrived at Sigonella Air Base (NAS2) on 21 November 2019. At that time, all five aircraft were undergoing developmental test flights. Initial operational capability (IOC) was expected in the first half of 2020. The last RQ-4D aircraft arrived on 12 November 2020.
Initial operational capability was achieved in February 2021. ==Deployments==