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• Hope Hodge Seck
The Army is considering whether balloons could serve as shooters as well as sensing platforms, an official said, describing the option as one of many under review. Using balloons to deliver weapons may pose greater challenges than using them for surveillance, but the service is keeping the possibility open.
DefenseNews.com
UAV Development & Drone Programs
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The Army is considering whether balloons could serve as shooters as well as sensing platforms, an official said, describing the option as one of many under review. Using balloons to deliver weapons may pose greater challenges than using them for surveillance, but the service is keeping the possibility open.
The Army is in the early stages of developing and testing a wearable or lightweight device intended to alert soldiers to the presence of hostile drones. The effort focuses on giving troops a portable detection capability, though no technical details or program schedule were provided.
The Army views modular high-energy laser systems that are not tied to a specific vehicle as essential to fielding counter-drone capabilities across its force. A common, adaptable design could let the service deploy the weapons on a wider range of vehicles, rather than limiting them to a single platform.
President Donald Trump announced a proposed Montana facility intended to expand testing capacity for autonomous weapons, space and electronic warfare technologies, supersonic and hypersonic systems. Separate reporting points to Kratos and Department of War efforts to expand radar sustainment and hypersonic thermal-protection evaluation infrastructure, alongside Kratos’ unmanned aircraft and engine developments.
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ANRA Technologies says its receive-only VISTA application draws on UAS traffic management services to show nearby drone activity to public safety agencies and commercial operators. The shared view requires no changes to existing aircraft or flight software; a separate public safety exercise also demonstrated airspace-awareness software for response coordination.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) says he and Senate colleagues will ask the Defense Department inspector general to investigate Ukraine’s sudden loss of access to Starshield, the military version of Starlink. The disruption reportedly hampered Ukrainian forces’ ability to intercept Russian drones.
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Ukrainian units have received 80 interceptor drones, bought for about $3,800 each, to counter Russia’s jet-powered Shahed/Geran-4 attacks. Satellite imagery shows a new Russian launch facility with eight launch positions and 32 drone-preparation areas, while U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon wants $50 billion to scale autonomous-weapons stocks into the millions.
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