Development began in 1997 and was kept under tight secrecy, and for many years the weapon's manufacturers refused to acknowledge its existence. The program was conducted since the beginning by
DCTA (Aerospace Technology and Science Department), along with Mectron, a
São José dos Campos based company, and is currently in final testing phase. According to
FAB, the test campaign is now in the weapons separation trials phase, using
A-1B aircraft from IPTV (Instituto de Pesquisa e Teste de Voo - Research and Flight Test Institute), a division of DCTA. Captive and certification flight tests were performed in December 2008, in order to evaluate the
fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) module. This module, consisting of three interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes, is part of the
Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and was developed indigenously by the Institute for Advanced Studies (Instituto de Estudos Avançados,
IEAv). The missile proximity fuse is provided by the Brazilian firm Opto Eletronica. The missile is guided by a locally developed passive anti-radiation seeker, designed to target different types of land-based and sea-based radars operating in different bands, including high power surveillance radars, low power mobile radars and tracking radars used by
surface-to-air missile systems. Enemy radars can be targeted by the missile independently or with targeting data from the launch aircraft's
electronic warfare systems, such as the
radar warning receiver. The missile has full ECCM capability, and uses passive guidance in self-defense (reactive) mode, or pre-programmed target mode, used primarily for area suppression or attacking expected targets. In order to improve survivability, the missile's airframe is built with composite materials that reduce its
radar cross-section. Faced with this obstacle, the DCTA had no alternative but to locally develop a seeker head. In December 2008 the Brazilian government approved the sale of 100 MAR-1 missiles to the
Pakistan Air Force, in a contract worth $108 million. In October 2013, the
UAE Armed Forces expressed its interest in purchasing a batch of missiles. ==Operators==