Golden Horde program has successful second demo, building digital testing capability

The Golden Horde swarming munitions program has held a successful second demonstration after an unexpected software issue arose in December and is now focused on building a new digital testing capability called Colosseum.

During the latest flight test, four Small Diameter Bomb Is established communication with each other, identified a new target and assigned themselves to different airstrike missions, according to a notice the Air Force Research Laboratory released today. The service's 96th Test Wing oversaw the Feb. 19 demonstration at Eglin Air Force Base, FL.

The first flight test in December only flew two “collaborative” SDB Is, which managed to communicate with one another and detect a new threat but had to strike a backup target because an improper software load prevented the weapons from receiving updated coordinates.

“The continued success of the Golden Horde demonstrations strengthens the foundation for integrating this technology into a variety of other weapon systems and helps the U.S. maintain a technological advantage over our adversaries,” Col. Garry Haase, director of AFRL’s munitions directorate, said in today’s release.

AFRL is now preparing for a third and final flight test this spring while shifting to a new phase of Golden Horde.

Rather than performing more demonstrations with inventory weapons, as previously planned, the notice states the program is developing Colosseum, a “multi-tier digital weapon ecosystem,” which Aviation Week first reported last month.

“The Colosseum will be a fully integrated simulation environment with weapon digital twins, or a real-world weapon and a virtual clone, to more rapidly test, demonstrate, improve and transition collaborative autonomous networked technologies,” the release explains.