It was on March 2, 2021 that
Israel’s ELBIT Systems had announced that it had received a US$300 million
contract from an undisclosed Asian customer to supply and deliver Hermes 900
Starliner MALE-UAS. The contract also requires ELBIT Systems to provide
MRO services for those MALE-UAVs. That customer has turned out to be
India, with six each of the UAVs and one each of the ground-based control
stations going to the Indian Army and Indian Navy.
All 12 Hermes 900s will be
licence-assembled by Adani Defence & Aerospace, through its Adani-Elbit UAV Complex subsidiary, located at
the Adani Aerospace Park in Hyderabad. Adani Defence & Aerospace had first exhibited
the Hermes 900 during the Aero India 2017 expo in Bengaluru. Thereafter, the
$15 million Adani-Elbit UAV Complex was inaugurated in December 2018, where most of the composites-based aerostructures for the
Hermes 900 are fabricated.
The Hermes 900 has a payload
capacity of 300kg, service ceiling of 9,100 metres (30,000 feet), a cruise
speed of 112kph (60 Knots), and an endurance of 36 hours at cruise speed. The
payload includes either a synthetic aperture radar for ground target-mapping,
or a maritime surveillance radar as well as the standard optronic sensor, plus
an electronic surveillance system and the automatic identification system (AIS)
for maritime surveillance. Eyeing India’s long coastline, ELBIT notes that
maritime patrol aircraft could not possibly cover the country’s 200-mile
offshore economic exclusion zone (EEZ) without the benefit of cross-cueing from
a wide-area surveillance system such as the Hermes 900. Elbit claims that the
Hermes 900 could fly as far as 1,000nm offshore thanks to SATCOM
communications, and make frequent descents from higher altitude so that the
optronic sensor could identify vessels. The command-and-control system is
housed in a single shelter that can allow it to be carried by warships. ELBIT
has teamed with another Israeli company, MARINT, to offer advanced maritime
analytical software that can exploit data from multiple sources. Vessel
behaviour is analysed to detect anomalous and suspicious behaviour that differs
from routine maritime patterns.
