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The Army wants to instantly get eyes in the sky to watch over a potential enemy. But spy drones or satellites or even fighter jets can be too slow to handle the job. The answer: missiles that carry surveillance drones inside.

That’s right. The military wants to shoot off loads of flying, spying robots, using missiles to make for faster surveillance and attack. “ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) platforms delivered from missiles can potentially provide battlefield information that is only seconds old when transmitted from long ranges,” the Army explains in a request for research proposals. “This information is particularly valuable since it is so current. It provides the potential for striking a very mobile enemy before he has time to alter his position.”

Darpa launched a similar research effort a few years back. If the Army’s attempt works, it’d be a first for the military: unmanned, long-range, ultra-high-speed surveillance. And the drone-filled missiles would double as aerial weapons: The Army wants the proposed unmanned aerial vehicles to be armed, “provid[ing] the possibility of a long-range strike mission at the end of the ISR mission.”

www.dodsbir.net/solicitation/sbir101/army101.htm

www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/army-eyes-missiles-filled-with-flying
-spy-bots/

http://gizmodo.com/5406974/us-military-wants-armed-spy-bots-in-interco
ntinental-ballistic-missiles

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