Air Force, Marines test MALD missile decoy that can mimic radar signatures of F-16s and B-52s

The U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force announced on Tuesday that they had successfully completed the first flight demonstration of a Miniature Air Launched Decoy Jammer, or MALD-J, with a radio data link at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.

The Miniature Air Launched Decoy Jammer, or MALD, program was initiated by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1995 to develop a low-cost decoy missile that could be fired from a variety of aircraft at a safe standoff distance.

A contract for MALD was given to Raytheon in 2002, which manufactures the ADM-160B MALD and ADM-160C MALD-J.

MALD weighs less than 300 pounds and has a range of approximately 500 nautical miles. It can be launched from a range of aircraft, from a B-52 bomber to an F-16 multirole fighter jet.

MALD can autonomously fly a pre-planned route and mimic the radar signatures of other aircraft ranging from large strategic bombers to stealth fighters, or even entire formations of bombers or fighter jets, to mislead enemy defence systems.

In battle, a single MALD or flight of MALDs can be used to identify and distract enemy defenses, allowing other aircraft to destroy or evade these defenses.

A newer version of MALD, the MALD-J, possesses these decoy functions as well as the ability to spoof and jam enemy electronic systems.

MALD-J is equipped with a radio data link and can send situation awareness data to the battle manager, who can use this information to adjust MALD-J’s mission while in flight.