Defence prime Lockheed Martin has unveiled MORFIUS X-Rotor, a reusable airborne microwave weapon it says can disable more than 50 small drones in a single flight.
Unveiled at Farnborough, the X-Rotor is intended as a direct shot at the economics of counter-drone warfare, where missiles costing tens of thousands of dollars are routinely fired at cheap quadcopters.
The system is ground-launched, recovered after the mission, and reused. Lockheed says it works with existing radar and detection networks rather than needing its own dedicated sensor, which should make it easier to slot into the layered air-defence setups allies already run.
The pitch is simple but ambitious: swap one‑shot interceptors for a 'one‑to‑many' effector, shifting the economics of short‑range air defence back in favour of the defender.
"MORFIUS sets a new benchmark for counter-drone capability - delivering a high kill rate while keeping the cost per kill low," said Randy Crites, VP and GM, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Advanced Programs.
If the claimed cost-per-kill holds up under real conditions it has the potential to reshape demand for the missiles and jammers currently doing this job.
As yet, there is no published data on range, altitude envelope, or performance against different drone classes. What is has release is a run of flight tests in Arizona, California and Oklahoma and a claim that builds on HPM variants flown since 2017.
Lockheed is leaning on the Pentagon's roadmap to make its case. The company says MORFIUS supports the US Department of War's 2025–2028 Rapid Response Counter-UAS Roadmap, which is meant to get cheap, fast-fieldable systems to troops quickly.
The big picture
Counter-drone spending is heading from a few billion dollars today toward the tens of billions over the next decade, and every prime with a laser, jammer or interceptor to sell has a stake in whether microwave effectors like this one actually work at scale.