To replace those munitions, experts say, officials are likely to turn to Boeing Co. for a tail kit that converts an unguided free-fall bomb into a "smart" bomb through installation of a GPS-guided tail section.

The company has sold nearly 262,000 such kits, at $25,000 each, including thousands to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.

"These coalition partners have already bought quite a bit of weapons from American weapons makers," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group Corp., a Virginia research firm. "After a campaign like this, they're likely to buy more."

The Air Force is making upgrades to the F-22 by adding better processors and newer fiber-optic data-buses, but the technology remains hopelessly obsolete compared to current-day consumer devices. Part of the reason for that is it is more difficult to predict how emerging technologies will develop. "Figuring out which technologies pay their way on a commercial product is generally easier than figuring out which technologies offer the best bang for the buck on a military one," said analyst Richard Aboulafia at the Virginia-based Teal Group.

"The Global Hawk is becoming the backbone of high-altitude long endurance surveillance in the US military. The fleet is growing very rapidly," said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at the Teal Group, which specializes in the aerospace market.

"When it's working it works just fine but, to me, [the May 2014 failure] just sounds like bad workmanship," said Marco Caceres, senior analyst and director of space studies at the Teal Group. "It could be the bolts were poorly manufactured, it might have been corrosion — maybe they didn't screw them on tight enough; who knows?"

Marco Caceres, an analyst with the Virginia-based Teal Group, said the new satellite may be built by France's Thales (TCFP.PA), which has already built several satellites for South Korea. The satellite was likely medium-sized and would cost several hundred million dollars to build, plus another $100 million to launch, he said.