Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced it recently delivered the seventh Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS) aircraft to the US Army.
The King Air 350 mission enhancement kit (MEK) reduces aircraft weight, increases engine performance and reduces the overall sound signature to enhance its stealth capabilities. SNC modifies the aircraft to increase time aloft and allow for increased operating weight without greater take-off risk. It also enables operations on shorter runways, making the aircraft more suitable for a wider variety of operational environments.
The Army has procured 16 kits to date and SNC expects to deliver two additional MEK integrated aircraft this year. SNC will continue to perform work covered by this contract from its facilities in Hagerstown, Maryland.
EMARSS provides a persistent airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to detect, locate, classify, identify and track surface targets with a high degree of timeliness and accuracy during day, night and nearly all weather conditions. It enhances brigade combat team effectiveness by defining and assessing the communications environment and providing surveillance, targeting support and threat warning.
EMARSS contains a tailored set of distributed common ground system-army (DCGS-A) enabled software intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance functionalities to process, exploit and rapidly disseminate the intelligence derived from the imagery sensors. Selected EMARSS imagery is immediately processed on the aircraft and forwarded to DCGS-A for further processing, analysis and reporting.
The army plans to acquire a total of 24 EMARSS systems.
