Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS) is a system for image acquisition, data storage, and data link used by the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

on its

F/A-18D Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...

aircraft. It consists of the Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS) with infrared and visible light sensors, two digital tape recorders, and a Reconnaissance Management System (RMS); an interface with the APG-73 Radar Upgrade (Phase II) which records

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 ...

(SAR) imagery; and a digital data link mounted in a centerline pod. ATARS fits in the nose in place of the nose gun, with a small datalink pod mounted on the centerline station. The digital data link will transmit imagery and auxiliary data to any Common Imaging Ground/Surface Station (CIG/SS) compatible system including the Joint Services Imagery Processing System (JSIPS) or Marine Tactical Exploitation Group (TEG) based ashore and Navy JSIPS (JSIPS-N) aboard ship.

Operational use

Each of the four U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18D squadrons have three ATARS aircraft, giving a total of 12 ATARS equipped aircraft altogether. The first operational use of ATARS equipped aircraft occurred in February 2000 when

MCAS Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort or MCAS Beaufort is a United States Marine Corps (USMC) air base located northwest of the central business district of Beaufort, a city in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. About 4,700 personnel s ...

based VMFA(AW)-332 deployed to

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

Operation Allied Force The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...

. ATARS is a considerable advance in capability on the Marines old RF-4B/C aircraft.

References

{{Reflist
www.spyflight.co.uk

External links

ATARS Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance System (ATARS) is a system for image acquisition, data storage, and data link used by the United States Marine Corps on its F/A-18D Hornet aircraft. It consists of the Advanced Tactical Airborne Reconnaiss ...

Synthetic aperture radar Military equipment introduced in the 1990s