Tel Aviv: Israeli company Elbit Systems has been awarded a contract valued at approximately US $120 million to supply its Hermes 900 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for long-range maritime surveillance to an international customer.
The Hermes 900 multi-role MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) UAS is Elbit Systems’ largest unmanned aerial system, designed to perform a wide range of missions including area dominance and persistent intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) across both land and maritime domains. Since its first order in 2011, the Hermes 900 has been selected by over 20 customers worldwide.
Yoram Shmuely, Executive Vice President / General Manager – Aerospace of Elbit Systems said that this contract reflects the confidence of company’s clients in the company’s solutions.
The Elbit Systems Hermes 900 UAS keeps its status as one of the Israeli company’s best selling products.
The advanced Hermes 900 UAS can also perform ground support and maritime patrol missions, and provides the capabilities for integrated multi-platform, multi-sensor operations, as seen in the recent attacks on ground targets and confirmed officially.
The Hermes 900 UAS has an endurance of up to 30 hours in a single sortie and features over-the-horizon, persistent multi-mission capabilities with a payload carrying capacity of 450 kgs and maximum ceiling of 30,000 feet.
According to the Israeli company, the Hermes 900 incorporates flexible cutting edge multi- payload configurations employing standard and long-range SPECTRO EO/IR/SWIR/LTD, SAR/GMTI & MPR, COMINT Cellular, CoMMJAM, ELINT, large area scanning systems, SkyEye wide area persistent surveillance and other payloads.
Only recently a gag order has been removed after 20 years and the Israeli Air Force (IAF) confirmed that it has been using armed UAS. The Hermes-900 is one of these UAS’s and carries a variety of weapon systems. The specifications of these systems are highly classified but it can be said that they have been developed by the Israeli defence companies to achieve the highest level of performance when launched from an unmanned aerial systems.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
