Resupply wherenothing elsegets through.
DART is an attritable precision delivery vehicle designed to place critical supplies into contested, satellite-denied, and physically unreachable areas — without putting aircrew over the objective.
- Vehicle
- DART
- Class
- Attritable glide delivery
- Status
- Concept — module validated
When resupply fails, the mission fails with it.
Teams operating in remote and contested environments have no dependable, low-risk way to be resupplied. Every option available today trades one unacceptable risk for another.
Ground convoy
Exposes personnel for the length of the route, depends on surviving infrastructure, and arrives slowly.
Conventional airdrop
Puts a crewed aircraft over the objective and scatters the load across a wide area.
Manned helicopter
The highest risk to force of any option, at the highest cost per sortie.
Precision airdrop
Depends on satellite positioning that a capable adversary will deny, and is constrained by terrain.
Small UAV
Cannot be launched from far enough away to keep the host platform safe.
The common failure is proximity: something expensive and crewed has to get close to the objective. DART removes that requirement.
DART
A gliding delivery vehicle released from a host platform well outside the threat ring. It navigates itself to the objective, sheds speed through a staged descent, and sets the payload down intact. It is designed to be left behind.
Denied Area Resupply Tool
Design requirements
- 01
Low signature
Shaped and treated to stay off sensors through the phases where exposure actually matters.
- 02
Multi-platform
Released from cargo aircraft, tactical aircraft, or sounding rockets — no bespoke launch infrastructure.
- 03
Sub-orbital capacity
Structure and thermal design sized for release profiles that begin above the atmosphere.
- 04
Flexible payload
A modular bay that carries whatever the team on the ground actually needs, not a fixed load-out.
- 05
Denied operations
Holds its track when satellite positioning is jammed, spoofed, or simply unavailable.
- 06
Fully attritable
Inexpensive enough to abandon on the ground, so recovery never becomes a second mission.
Components
Aeroshell
Low-observable outer structure. Carries flight loads and shields everything inside it.
Control surfaces
Wings and tail surfaces that deploy after release to give the vehicle trajectory authority.
Sensors & navigation
Guidance that holds an accurate track without depending on satellite positioning.
Power & control
Flight computer and stored power, sized for the full descent from release to ground contact.
Payload bay
Modular and tool-free, so the receiving team can clear it and move without waiting.
Parachute
Terminal deceleration from flight speed to a survivable descent rate.
Airbag
Impact attenuation at ground contact. This is the module we built and tested first.
Six phases, release to delivery.
One continuous descent. The host platform never approaches the objective, and no part of the sequence needs a person in the loop.
CONOPS — Phase 01 of 06
01
Captive carry
DART rides the host platform to the release point with its wings folded, drawing no attention of its own.
- Captive carry
- Release
- Glide
- Flare
- Parachute
- Delivery
Built for the conditions that break everything else.
Contested airspace
Layered air defence and saturated sensor coverage. Anything large, slow, or crewed is a target.
Satellite denied
Jamming and spoofing treated as the baseline condition rather than the exception.
No usable infrastructure
No runway, no road, no prepared landing zone, and no guarantee the terrain is survivable.
Inside the window
A resupply that arrives late is a resupply that did not happen.
Platform agnostic by design
Standoff is set by whatever you release from, so DART was designed to be released from several things rather than optimised for one.
- 01
Cargo & civil aircraft
Ramp or door release
The most flexible option, and the easiest to field with aircraft that already exist.
- 02
Tactical aircraft & UAS
Pylon or bay release
Greater standoff and a faster, higher release, at the cost of platform availability.
- 03
Sounding rockets
Payload separation
The greatest reach of the three, and independent of any crewed aircraft.
The same problem wears two uniforms.
A place that is too dangerous to fly into and a place that has been cut off by a disaster are, logistically, the same place.
Defense
Sustained resupply to small teams operating beyond the reach of conventional logistics, without exposing aircrew or ground convoys to reach them.
Humanitarian
Medical supplies, water treatment, and communications equipment into disaster zones where the infrastructure is gone and there is no safe approach for a crewed aircraft.
We built the hardest part first.
The unsolved problem in this system was never the flying. It was the last two metres — putting a fragile payload onto unprepared ground, hard, without destroying it.
So that is what our founding team built. A full-scale impact attenuation system, drop-tested against instrumented hardware, with measured behaviour matched to our simulation. Not a render. Real hardware, in a field, on a rope.
The concept originated as a graduate systems engineering project at MIT. Dart-Works Inc. was formed to carry it forward.
In progress
- Aeroshell and control surface design
- Guidance and sensor stack integration
- Deployment repeatability in degraded conditions
Talk to us.
We are early, and we are deliberate about who we build this with.
Investors
For the full technical brief, test data, and commercialisation plan.
Partners & customers
Programme offices, primes, and relief organisations working the contested-logistics problem.
Engineers
Aerospace, guidance, RF, and structures. Tell us what you have built.