US develops attack missile that can be recovered after launch

The Pentagon has revealed that it is combining the best ideas in aviation design to build a fleet of small robotic aircraft. These won't be ordinary drones.

Instead, the idea is to launch multiple swarms of these small aircraft from the rear doors of a larger aircraft.

Or more precisely, the US military wants to turn the large C-130 transport aircraft into a temporary airborne aircraft carrier, performing the dropping and recovery of small drones in a program the Pentagon calls Gremlins.

Researchers at DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will put out a call later this year to turn this idea into reality.

Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be very useful for a number of applications, especially in the military. They can perform reconnaissance missions for ground forces, can carry bombs and provide battlefield supplies.

If necessary, they can also become a self-propelled missile, although most of them are not used as such because of their great flexibility in reusability.

In reality, Gremlins would be a type of UAV that would be both a missile - a single-use weapon - and a drone that would incorporate launch and recovery technology.

The ultimate goal of the Gremlins program is to create a new capability that would allow fighters, bombers, or transport aircraft to release Gremlins at a safe distance from the enemy to carry out their missions.

After completing their mission, the Gremlins would be recovered by a C-130 and returned to base for a 24-hour rotation of missions. Ideally, each Gremlin would have a lifespan of 20 deployments and would act as a middle ground between manned aircraft and missiles.

DARPA hopes that the Gremlins program will be the technological foundation that will allow future fighters to deploy inexpensive unmanned platforms that can be dropped and later recovered from other aircraft.

Gremlins are not intended to replace the role of current multirole fighters, but they offer a simpler, lower-cost technological solution that can be deployed and recovered multiple times. In particular, they can deal with enemy stealth fighters.