The Advanced

Synthetic Aperture Radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fine ...

System-2 (ASARS-2) is the radar system mounted on some variants of the

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day ...

reconnaissance aircraft. The ASARS-2 radar was originally developed in the early 1980s by

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting p ...

, which was acquired by

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...

in the late 1990s. It is capable of detecting and accurately locating both stationary and moving ground targets; target information is transmitted via a

wideband In communications, a system is wideband when the message bandwidth significantly exceeds the coherence bandwidth of the Channel (communications), channel. Some communication links have such a high Bit rate, data rate that they are forced to use a ...

data link A data link is the means of connecting one location to another for the purpose of transmitting and receiving digital information (data communication). It can also refer to a set of electronics assemblies, consisting of a transmitter and a recei ...

to a ground station. The radar is capable of producing extremely

high resolution Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how ...

images at long range. ASARS-2 was used extensively during

Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

for target location and battle damage assessment. It has also been used to survey damage after various domestic disasters, including

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

s along the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

and the

1994 Northridge earthquake The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment 6.7 (), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The quake had a duration of approximately ...

. In the late 1990s, the ASARS Improvement Program (AIP) incorporated several performance and supportability enhancements into the system. Making extensive use of

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

technology, the AIP redesign increased on-board processing capability and upgraded the data link. The first of these ASARS-2A radars was delivered in 2001. Some features and technologies from the ASARS-2A system have been incorporated into the

Raytheon Sentinel The Raytheon Sentinel is an airborne battlefield and ground surveillance aircraft formerly operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF). While based on the Bombardier Global Express ultra long-range business jet, the prime contractor for the Senti ...

developed as the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

's Airborne STand-Off Radar (ASTOR) aircraft.

References

ASARS-2 product information on the Raytheon website

{{Raytheon Aircraft radars Hughes Aircraft Company Raytheon Company products Synthetic aperture radar