PARIS, June 12 (UPI) -- Sagem of France has been contracted to supply the French military with its Sperwer Mk II tactical drones.
The five vehicles, ordered by the French defense procurement agency DGA, will be delivered this year and next and will augment the French army's fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Sperwer Mk II carries high-performance intelligence and surveillance payloads. It has a flight endurance of about 6 hours. It is launched with a catapult and employs a parachute system for retrieval.
DGA also announced that it has selected Sagem to modernize the GPS code module on all Sperwer drones in service. The modules were originally developed for the Rafale multi-role fighter.
The GPS modules provide geo-location data on ground targets and are used with the company's Euroflir 350+ optronics pod.
The schedule for modernizing the GPS modules wasn't disclosed.
