Airbus will argue a cheap drone of air defense missiles: when it will confuse threats

To spread: a prototype armed with two missiles plan to run into the sky by the end of 2025. It is based on a target plane of the 2000s. On March 26, Airbus at the exhibition of unmanned systems in Bonn, Germany, introduced the concept of Load, which proposes to use to destroy air threats. About it reports Defense News. Modified UAVs with autonomy elements will be able to carry three managed missiles.

According to Airbus, its action radius will be 100 kilometers, and the start will be made by catapult. After a successful mission, the drone is intended to be returned to the base and a parachute landing, ready for reuse. The two missile prototype will fly by the end of the year, the company said, and the final product will be ready in two years, by 2027. By the way, Ukraine's Shahaned drones are being developed in Ukraine.

In October, it became known about the test of the new Ukrainian UAV "Vatra", which was able to rise by 7 km. Capting cheap rockets and drones can today only be quite expensive, and the new system has to solve this problem. The design is based on a DO-D25-d-D25-mazine aircraft and is called Load (reduction from Low-Cost Air Defense). Thanks to this approach, the interceptor will be inexpensive and disposable, as Airbus assures. Do-DT25 has a length of 3. 1 meters and wingspan 2. 5 meters.

Its maximum speed is 300 knots (555 km/h), and it can be in the air for about an hour. Load is expected to occupy an intermediate position between a bargage ammunition and a drone. UAVs will receive data from radars or a map of the air environment to search and track goals, first of all-enemy drones-Kamikadze. But it will only be able to attack the command of the control operator of the control station.

Autonomous opportunities promised for Load are likely to be based on Airbus's previous work with DO-D25 platform. In March 2023, the company demonstrated an autonomous guidance and management of several DT-25 drones from the A310 Mritt A310 aircraft, demonstrating achievements in the field of accurate relative navigation, flight and cooperative management algorithms. As a further step, Airbus plans to integrate LOAD with other unmanned aircraft such as the EURODRONE project.

According to the company, this will allow LOAD to work in regions "not yet fully covered with land radars. " Airbus also stressed that the new drone does not contain American technologies, as European companies seek to get rid of US dependence. This means that it will not be subject to ITAR, referring to international arms trade rules introduced by Washington, leaving future export decisions exclusively to European users.