Ukraine’s Blyskavka-2 Drone Receives Terminal Guidance, to Carry Its Own Warhead

The Ukrainian company Blyskavka has developed a new version of its Blyskavka-2 loitering munition.

The company’s founder shared details about the system in an interview with Militarnyi.

Thanks to a redesigned aerodynamic fairing, the unmanned aircraft can remain airborne for up to 45 minutes.

It has also received new electric motors, updated firmware, new batteries, and other upgraded components.

The company representative added that the aircraft is currently supplied without a warhead or a communications relay module (repeater).

“My aim right now is for this to become a complete system. At the moment, it still isn’t, because it doesn’t yet have its own warhead or, in most cases, its own communications relay,” the founder of Blyskavka shared.

The company plans to supply the unmanned aircraft with its own warhead and fuze.

The founder pointed out an incident in which an acquaintance complained that the Blyskavka UAV failed to detonate when fitted with an improvised warhead. However, after installing the standard (factory-designed) warhead, it functioned properly.

To avoid such situations, the company is developing purpose-built warheads tailored to different mission requirements.

The company has also completed development of its own relay-carrying platform and has equipped the first drones with the Norda-8 terminal guidance system.

“What I want for the Blyskavka drone – and we’ve already done it with the Norda-8, which works exceptionally well – is for it to operate using a mast. We’ve built the mast: we fly, spot the target, click on it, and the drone goes. That means there’s no need to launch a relay carrier,” the founder noted.

A communications relay is used to increase the effective control altitude and overcome the radio horizon limitation, thereby extending the command-and-control link beyond the direct line of sight.