The Air Force wants industry to make an identical copy of the Shahed-136 drone, used by Russia in relentless attacks on Ukraine, to develop and test defenses against the Iranian-designed system.
The service wants to buy 16 of these Shahed look-alikes, with an option to buy 20 more later, as it pursues the “next generation” of counter-drone programs, according to a request for information posted last week.
“To support weapons development and integration of these weapon systems, the [U.S. government] requires that the Class 3 unmanned aerial target system be a 1:1 copy (form, fit and function) of a reverse engineered Shahed-136 suicide drone,” the solicitation said.
The drone must be an “exact replica” of the Iranian bird with the same profile, shape, payload capacity—about 70 to 100 pounds—and must be able to fly at least 50 miles, according to the solicitation. That’s far less than the Shahed’s range of over a thousand miles, but sufficient for testing purposes.
Designed in Iran, modified and mass-produced under license by Russia, the Shahed-136 has emerged as a favorite weapon of the invading forces inside Ukraine. Their price tag is estimated at $30,000 to $40,000 apiece, a fraction of the cost of the U.S. and European missiles used to take them down. That imbalance, plus depleted stockpiles of interceptors, has Ukraine and its supporters hunting for cheaper defenses.
Several U.S. firms have already started designing Shahed-esque offerings for the Pentagon. During a drone demo event at the Pentagon last month, SpektreWorks, an Arizona-based drone manufacturer, showed off its new Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, dubbed LUCAS, that can emulate a Shahed. Another firm, Alabama-based Griffon Aerospace, recently unveiled the MQM-172 Arrowhead, marketed as both an attack and target drone.
While the Air Force provided some guidelines in the solicitation, the government said it won’t provide a technical data package for this requirement, so companies must be able to design and develop their own copy.
The solicitation notes that the drone will be sent to the service’s armament directorate, which develops weapons at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
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