Insitu Pacific conducts successful PicoSAR maiden flight

Insitu Pacific, the Australia-based subsidiary of Insitu Inc., announced today that it successfully conducted the maiden flight of the PicoSAR on the Integrator Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

SELEX Galileo's PicoSAR is a world leading, compact Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) and embedded advanced processing deliver high-resolution SAR images from extended ranges, in all weather conditions.

The newly installed SAR payload was successfully flown during a series of dedicated Integrator UAS test flights in August at Insitu's testing range in the United States. All modes and functions of the SAR weresuccessfully tested. "This has been a fantastic team effort between Insitu Pacific, Insitu and SELEX Galileo personnel who have collaborated closely to achieve this impressive result. This is exactly the type of rapid payload integration capability that the Integrator UAS platform has been designed to facilitate," said Andrew Duggan, Insitu Pacific Managing Director.

The incorporation of the PicoSAR to the Integrator UAS means that Insitu's customers are able to conduct high definition SAR missions in a range of challenging operating environments. PicoSAR offers high-resolution Strip and Spot SAR and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) modes enable operators to conduct both wide area surveillance and real time moving target detection missions.

"This is a very exciting opportunity for us," said Adrian Gallagher, SELEX Galileo Radar Campaign Manager. "To be able to integrate this payload onto the Insitu Integrator UAS platform will enable us to provide outstanding SAR imagery and access to an increasing global market interested in the application of SAR/GMTI sensors. The professionalism of the team at Insitu Pacific throughout the integration and testing activity was clearly evident during the flight tests. Together we achieved a very successful maiden flight and SELEX Galileo is very pleased to have partnered with Insitu Pacific on this project."