Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the number of Gremlin drones involved in the test flight. Three of the systems flew during the event.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 For the first time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recovered an unmanned X-61 Gremlin air vehicle to a C-130 in flight, marking a milestone in the U.S. military\u2019s effort to deploy swarms of drones from a mothership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first successful midair Gremlin recovery took place Oct. 29 at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, DARPA said in a Friday release. During this flight test \u2014 the fourth deployment of the Gremlins \u2014 two of the small drones successfully carried out all formation flying positions and safety features before one was successfully recovered, DARPA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A third Gremlin was destroyed during the flight tests, DARPA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Gremlins team then refurbished the recovered drone and flew it again within 24 working hours, the release said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DARPA hopes the program \u2014 named for the imaginary, mischievous creatures that World War II-era pilots blamed when their aircraft or equipment malfunctioned \u2014 will one day allow the military to launch groups of small sensor-laden drones from bombers, cargo planes or smaller aircraft such as fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DARPA envisions the motherships will stay out of range of enemy defenses, but the drone swarms would fly into danger and conduct missions such as intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance or electronic warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the mothership collects the drones and brings them back to base, ground crews would get them ready for another flight within 24 hours, DARPA said in a 2018 report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agency hopes each drone would have a lifetime of 20 flights. The agency said flying these relatively disposable drones would allow the military to accomplish missions much more cheaply and with less maintenance efforts than relying on nonexpendable systems meant to fly for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis recovery was the culmination of years of hard work and demonstrates the feasibility of safe, reliable airborne recovery,\u201d Lt. Col. Paul Calhoun, the Gremlins program manager in DARPA\u2019s Tactical Technology Office, said in the release. \u201cSuch a capability will likely prove to be critical for future distributed air operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n