WINFLY's Spider spends a net, not the whole interceptor
The reusable drone cuts the cost of catching slow, low targets, but its 160 km/h speed leaves jet-powered Shaheds to faster interceptors.
GPS-free navigation and autonomous terminal guidance move the intercept onto the aircraft as Russian jamming degrades external links.
The reusable drone cuts the cost of catching slow, low targets, but its 160 km/h speed leaves jet-powered Shaheds to faster interceptors.
Investors bet $3.4 billion on Monday that cheap interceptor missiles win the counter-drone war. The same week, the Pentagon capped what it will pay for them and funded two rival ways of killing drones.
Ukraine's $2,000 interceptor drones stop nine in ten Shaheds. Its ballistic defense depends on a Lockheed line building 52 interceptors a month, and Trump has withdrawn the licence that was Kyiv's way around it.
Ukrainian interceptor drones now down about half of Russia's Shaheds, so Moscow is scaling a faster jet-powered Geran-4 built to outrun them.