Army eyes balloon motherships to drop 'lethal and non-lethal' drones, aid in counterspace ops -...

As the US Army contemplates floating extremely high-flying balloons into the stratosphere for a variety of missions, service space officials suggested recently that one of those missions might be carrying and launching drones that would disrupt or destroy enemy space assets on the ground, like jammers or satellite control stations.

Col. Donald Brooks, commandant of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, told the annual Association of the US Army conference earlier this month that the service will have “multi-form factor balloons operating at various altitudes, executing different mission sets, ultimately increasing the target problem set and dilemma for our adversaries, which directly supports the Army and [Defense Department] resiliency efforts and makes us more lethal.”

The balloons are envisioned as aiding in “deep sensing and support long-range precision fires, enable navigation warfare, provide network extension via voice and data, enable assured access to PNT — our position navigation and timing — and have both lethal and non-lethal payloads.”