A seven-year-old DARPA program has passed a historic milestone in aviation autonomy, showing for the first time that a small, intelligence-carrying drone can be recovered inflight by another aircraft.The next step for the Dynetics X-61A Gremlin program is to prove that the technology is useful. DARPA has defined the threshold of utility for Gremlins since 2018, saying Dynetics' industry team must show that a single operator can recover four X-61As aboard a Lockheed Martin C-130 in less than 30 min., or one every 7.5 min. The four-aircraft recovery milestone was always the goal of the current phase of the program, but delays and technical complexity have pushed the first attempt into an optional, follow-on phase that, if approved, could be staged next year.
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