AUSA 2025: Rafael unveils new loitering Spike missile variant

Rafael has debuted a new loitering variant of its Spike family of missiles at the 2025 Association of the US Army (AUSA) Exposition, held in Washington, DC, from 13 to 15 October.

Called the L-Spike 4X, the new missile is intended for engagements at ranges of around 40 km and can reach this distance in five minutes – considerably faster than most electrically powered loitering munitions.

As Yaron Lavy, Rafael’s head of marketing and business development for precision tactical weapons, told ESD at AUSA 2025, the L-Spike 4X is very much a missile with a loitering capability as opposed to an unmanned aerial vehicle that has been fitted with a warhead.

The system, according to Rafael, is designed for multi-domain operations in contested electromagnetic and GPS-denied environments and features hardened communications to sustain control under interference. In a loitering mode the missile can provide an on-station persistence of up to 25 minutes.

Lavy explained that the L-Spike 4X had been designed to address areas of “uncertainty” on the battlefield and to retain the benefits of the Spike NLOS missile while offering a loitering capability. The L-Sike 4X, in fact, is fully compatible with the cannister launcher of the Spike NLOS missile.

While the L-Spike 4X will have a number of warhead options, it will initially be offered with two – a tandem HEAT warhead and a multi-purpose warhead – with other options such as a penetration blast/fragmentation warhead to follow.

The architecture of the L-Spike 4X, which features a TV and infrared seeker, supports AI-enabled functions, including automatic target recognition and target image acquisition, according to Rafael, and enables a single operator to supervise and co-ordinate up to four missiles simultaneously in a single mission while retaining human decision authority.

Lavy said that the L-Spike 4X is currently at technology readiness level 5-6, will be tested next year and is slated to enter production in late 2027/early 2028

Lavy further explained that the L-Spike 4X, along with Rafael’s Spike 1X electrically powered tactical loitering munition, will form part of a new family of weapons. The Spike 1X was formally known as the Firefly, but has been upgraded with enhancing homing algorithms and has had its range extended from 1.5 km to 5 km.

While Lavy declined to go into the specifics of what the other loitering munitions in the new weapon family would look like – which from Rafael’s presentation at AUSA 2025 would see one weapon capability developed between those of the Spike 1 X and L-Spike 4X and another taking its place beyond the capabilities of the latter – he did say of the company, “Our operational experience is with loitering missiles.” This alludes to an operational loitering missile capability that predates the L-Spike 4X but has thus far been classified.