DARPA lines up LongShot

DARPA on 8 February awarded three companies preliminary Phase I design contracts on its LongShot programme.

General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman will each work on developing an air-launched UAV capable of employing multiple air-to-air weapons.

LongShot aims to result in a new type of UAV that can ‘significantly extend engagement ranges, increase mission effectiveness, and reduce the risk to manned aircraft’ by allowing them to remain at standoff range far away from enemy threats, DARPA noted.

By demonstrating an unmanned, air-launched vehicle capable of employing current and advanced air-to-air weapons, LongShot ‘changes the paradigm of air combat operations’ and will ‘disrupt traditional incremental weapon improvements’, said DARPA programme manager Lt Col Paul Calhoun.

In later phases of the LongShot programme, a full-scale air-launched demonstration system will be built that will be capable of controlled flight before, during, and after weapon ejection under operational conditions.

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