The EMARSS system consists of a King Air 350ER aircraft equipped with an electro-optic/infra-red (EO/IR) sensor, communications intelligence collection system, an aerial precision geolocation system, line-of-site tactical and beyond line-of-site communications suites, two Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A) workstations and a self-protection suite.
The EMARSS contributes to filling critical gaps in the Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AISR) coverage to be successful across the Range of Military Operations and especially in Irregular Warfare (IW) operations. The US Army will deploy four EMARSS aircraft in Afghanistan for assessing the forward capabilities of the aircraft. It is also currently deployed for operational missions in the SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM theaters. The regions these commands work are relatively low threat environments for American aircraft, but offer no shortage of work tracking drug smugglers, terrorists, and insurgents in remote areas.
The mission of EMARSS is to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition operations in support of ground combat units in overwatch and to maintain a persistent presence over demonstrated at-risk areas. The EMARSS offers significant benefits to the armed forces by collecting, analysing and providing real-time intelligence information to war fighters instantly. It provides a persistent multi-intelligence capability to detect, locate, classify/ identify, and track surface targets in day/night, near-all-weather conditions with a high degree of timeliness and accuracy.
EMARSS includes a low-risk, low-cost enhanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform. It is filling need for aircraft that are less expensive to acquire, maintain, and operate, typically niche capabilities that do not require the range or full mission services of an AWACS or JSTARS.
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