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Amother ship,mothership ormother-ship is a largevehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritimeship,aircraft, orspacecraft.
Examples includebombers converted to carryexperimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research (such as theB-52 carrying theX-15), or ships that carry smallsubmarines to an area of ocean to be explored (such as theAtlantis II carrying theAlvin).
A mother ship may also be used to recover smaller craft, or go its own way after releasing them. A smaller vessel serving or caring forlarger craft is usually called atender.
During World War II, theGerman Type XIV submarine orMilchkuh (Milk cow) was a type of large submarine used to resupply theU-boats.
Mother ships can carry smallsubmersibles andsubmarines to an area of ocean to be explored (such as theAtlantis II carrying the DSVAlvin).
Somali pirates use mother ships to extend their reach in the Indian Ocean. For example, theFVWin Far 161 was captured and used as a mother ship in theMaersk Alabama hijacking.
Inaviation, motherships have been used in theairborne aircraft carrier,air launch and captive carry roles. Some large long-range aircraft act as motherships toparasite aircraft. A mothership may also form the larger component of acomposite aircraft.
During the age of the greatairships, the United States built tworigid airships,USS Akron (ZRS-4) andUSS Macon (ZRS-5), with onboard hangars able to house a number ofCurtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters. These airborne aircraft carriers operated successfully for several years.[1] These airships utilized an internal hangar bay using a "trapeze" to hold the aircraft.[2]
In the air launch role, a large carrier aircraft or mother ship carries a smaller payload aircraft to a launch point before releasing it.
DuringWorld War II the JapaneseMitsubishi G4M bomber was used to carry the rocket-poweredYokosuka MXY7Ohka aircraft, used forkamikaze attacks, within range of a target ship. Germany also planned a jet-carrying bomber, called theDaimler-Benz Project C.
In the US,NASA has used converted bombers as launch platforms forexperimental aircraft. Notable among these was the use during the 1960s of a modifiedBoeing B-52 Stratofortress for the repeated launching of theNorth American X-15.
Experiments on air launching the Shuttle were carried out with the test frameEnterprise, but none of the Space Shuttle fleet was launched in this way once theSpace Shuttle program was commenced. In a captive carry arrangement the payload craft, such as arocket,missile,aeroplane orspaceplane, does not separate from the carrier aircraft.
Captive carry is typically used to conduct initial testing on a new airframe or system, before it is ready for free flight[3][4][5]
Captive carry is sometimes also used to transport an aircraft or spacecraft on aferry flight. Notable examples include:
Some large long-range aircraft have been modified as motherships in order to carryparasite aircraft which support the mothership by extending its role, for example for reconnaissance, or acting in a support role such as fighter defence.[7][8]
The first experiments withrigid airships to launch and recover fighters were carried out during World War I.
The British experimented with the23-class airships from that time. Then in the 1920s, as part of the "Airship Development Programme", they used theR33 for experiments. Ade Havilland Humming Bird light aeroplane with a hook fitted was slung beneath it.[9] In October 1925 Squadron Leader Rollo Haig, was released from the R33, and then reattached.[10] Later that year, the attempt was repeated and the Humming Bird remained attached until the airship landed.In 1926, it carried twoGloster Grebe fighters releasing them at the Pulham and Cardington airship stations.[11]
In the U.S.,USSLos Angeles (ZR-3), used for prototype testing for the Akron and Macon airborne aircraft carriers.
During World War II the Soviet Tupolev-VakhmistrovZveno project developed convertedTupolev TB-1 andTB-3 aircraft to carry and launch up to five smaller craft, typically in roles such as fighter escort or fighter-bomber.
During the early days of the jet age, fighter aircraft could not fly long distances and still match point defence fighters or interceptors in dogfighting. The solution was long-range bombers that would carry or tow their escort fighters.
B-29 Superfortress andB-36 Peacemaker bombers were tested as carriers for theRF-84K Thunderflash (FICON project) andXF-85 Goblin fighters.[7]
In November 2014, the U.S.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) requested industry proposals for a system in which smallunmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would be launched and recovered by their existing conventional large aircraft, including theB-52 Stratofortress andB-1 Lancer bombers andC-130 Hercules andC-17 Globemaster III transports.[12]
In a composite aircraft, two or more component aircraft take off as a single unit and later separate. The British Short S.21Maia experimental flying boat served as the mother ship component of theShort Mayo Composite two-plane maritime trans-Atlantic project design in the 1930s.[7][13]
The mother ship concept was used inMoon landings performed in the 1960s. Both the 1962 AmericanRanger and the 1966 SovietLuna uncrewed landers were spherical capsules designed to be ejected at the last moment from mother ships that carried them to the Moon, and crashed onto its surface. In the crewedApollo program, astronauts in theLunar Module left theCommand/Service Module mother ship in lunar orbit, descended to the surface, and returned to dock in alunar orbit rendezvous with the mother ship once more for the return to Earth.[14]
TheScaled Composites White Knight series of aircraft are designed to launch spacecraft which they carry underneath them.
There have been numerous sightings ofunidentified flying objects (UFOs) claimed to be mother ships, many in the U.S. during the summer of 1947. A woman inPalmdale, California, was quoted by contemporary press as describing a "mother saucer (with a) bunch of little saucers playing around it".[15] The termmothership was also popularized in UFO lore bycontacteeGeorge Adamski, who claimed in the 1950s to sometimes see large cigar-shapedVenusian motherships, out of which flew smaller-sizedflying saucer scout ships. Adamski claimed to have met and befriended the pilots of these scout ships, including a Venusian named Orthon.[16]
The concept of a mother ship also occurs inscience fiction, extending the idea tospaceships that serve as the equivalent offlagships among a fleet. In this context,mother ship is often spelled as one word:mothership.
A mothership may be large enough that its body contains a station for the rest of the fleet.[17] Examples include the large craft inClose Encounters of the Third Kind andBattlestar Galactica.
In manyAsian languages, such asChinese,Japanese,Korean andIndonesian, the wordmothership (Chinese:母舰,Japanese:母艦,Korean:모함,Indonesian:Kapal induk, literally "mother" + "(war)ship") typically refers to anaircraft carrier, which is translated as "aircraft/aviation mothership" (Chinese:航空母舰,Japanese:航空母艦,Korean:항공모함,Malay:Kapal induk pesawat udara).
