United States defense technology business Anduril Industries has revealed massive production of its new Roadrunner loitering interceptor, a multiple-use drone designed to counter aerial hazards with rapid-launch capabilities.The company shared an image throughout its social media platforms showing a significant number of serially produced Roadrunner units, signaling that the system is moving beyond advancement into major manufacturing.According to the company, Roadrunner is a reusable, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), operator-supervised Autonomous Air Vehicle (AAV) geared up with twin turbojet engines and modular payload alternatives.
These engines allow the airplane to launch vertically without a booster and reach high subsonic speeds in flight.The interceptors key feature depends on its partial reusability.
While the Roadrunner-M variation carries a high-explosive fragmentation warhead to destroy air-borne targets, the system can be securely recovered if it misses its mark.
In such cases, the drone carries out a regulated vertical landing powered by its own propulsion an approach compared to the Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX.Roadrunner-M is a high-explosive interceptor variation of Roadrunner built for ground-based air defense.
It can rapidly introduce, recognize, obstruct, and destroy a wide array of aerial risks or be safely recuperated and relaunched at near-zero cost.This mix of high-speed interception and reusability sets the Roadrunner apart from many standard loitering munitions, which are normally single-use systems.
Its modular design also enables different objective setups beyond kinetic interception.Source: Defence Blog