Mercury Introduces First Commercial Air-to-Ground SAR Radar Flight Testing Simulator

ANDOVER, Mass., Dec. 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mercury Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY, www.mrcy.com), a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, today introduced the first commercially available flight testing simulator for air-to-ground synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. The ARES-SAR product builds on more than 25 years of test and train technology from the Mercury Processing Platform to enable government and commercial organizations to save time and costs by reducing the need for actual flight testing through the simulation of realistic SAR scenarios on the ground.

SAR systems have become an integral tool for crewed and uncrewed airborne and space-based systems. These systems allow pilots of fifth-generation fighter jets to navigate safely, target munitions, and perform battle damage assessments in all-weather conditions, day or night. They allow satellites to conduct environmental monitoring, mapping, and surveillance missions. A significant portion of the time and cost of developing these systems is consumed by real-world testing, which today can cost millions of dollars and require many flight tests over months or years.

ARES-SAR builds on Mercury’s heritage of digital RF memory (DRFM)-based electronic warfare training, test, and evaluation solutions. In 2020, the company introduced ARES3100, an advanced radar environment simulator for testing and training air-to-air radar capabilities in a laboratory environment or an anechoic chamber.

ARES-SAR can be employed by itself or alongside ARES3100, as both use Mercury’s software interface that makes it easy to quickly configure multiple test scenarios that include various geographies, imaging modes, targets, environmental effects, and countermeasures. Development of ARES-SAR was funded by the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, and the product is in use by several Air Force and Navy customers.

“To ensure technological superiority on the battlefield, organizations responsible for fielding air and space systems must develop and deploy advanced capabilities in a more timely and cost-effective way,” said Roya Montakhab, Mercury’s GM of Platform Systems. “ARES-SAR allows radar systems to undergo robust qualification programs without ever leaving the ground.”

For more information, visit mrcy.com or contact Mercury at info@mrcy.com.

Mercury Systems – Innovation that matters^®
Mercury Systems is a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, making advanced technologies profoundly more accessible for today’s most challenging aerospace and defense missions. The Mercury Processing Platform allows customers to tap into innovative capabilities from silicon to system scale, turning data into decisions on timelines that matter. Mercury’s products and solutions are deployed in more than 300 programs and across 35 countries, enabling a broad range of applications in mission computing, sensor processing, command and control, and communications. Mercury is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, and has 24 locations worldwide. To learn more, visit mrcy.com. (Nasdaq: MRCY)

Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including those relating to the Company's focus on enhanced execution of the Company's strategic plan under a refreshed Board and leadership team. You can identify these statements by the words “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “plans,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “likely,” “forecast,” “probable,” “potential,” and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, continued funding of defense programs, the timing and amounts of such funding, general economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the Company’s markets, effects of any U.S. federal government shutdown or extended continuing resolution, effects of geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in or cost increases related to completing development, engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, changes in, or in the U.S. government’s interpretation of, federal export control or procurement rules and regulations, changes in, or in the interpretation or enforcement of, environmental rules and regulations, market acceptance of the Company's products, shortages in or delays in receiving components, supply chain delays or volatility for critical components such as semiconductors, production delays or unanticipated expenses including due to quality issues or manufacturing execution issues, failure to achieve or maintain manufacturing quality certifications, such as AS9100, the impact of the COVID pandemic and supply chain disruption, inflation and labor shortages, among other things, on program execution and the resulting effect on customer satisfaction, inability to fully realize the expected benefits from acquisitions, restructurings, and execution excellence initiatives or delays in realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses and achieving anticipated synergies, effects of shareholder activism, increases in interest rates, changes to industrial security and cyber-security regulations and requirements and impacts from any cyber or insider threat events, changes in tax rates or tax regulations, such as the deductibility of internal research and development, changes to interest rate swaps or other cash flow hedging arrangements, changes to generally accepted accounting principles, difficulties in retaining key employees and customers, which difficulties may be impacted by the termination of the Company’s announced strategic review initiative, unanticipated challenges with the transition of the Company’s Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer roles, including any dispute arising with the former CEO over his resignation, unanticipated costs under fixed-price service and system integration engagements, and various other factors beyond our control. These risks and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made.

INVESTOR CONTACT
Nelson Erickson
Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development
Nelson.Erickson@mrcy.com

MEDIA CONTACT
Turner Brinton
Sr. Director, Corporate Communications
Turner.Brinton@mrcy.com

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