MBDA to double Aster air-defense missile output in 2026

PARIS — MBDA, Europe’s biggest missile maker, plans to double production of its top-of-the-range Aster air-defense missile in 2026, an “absolutely massive” jump in response to surging demand, Chief Executive Officer Éric Béranger said.

The company will lift its overall missile output by 40% this year, a “very significant” increase, Béranger said at a press conference here on Thursday to present MBDA’s annual results. The firm will double the size of its five-year investment plan to help ramp up production.

The destruction wrought by missiles and drones in wars in Ukraine and the Middle East has created a sense of urgency in Europe to build up air defenses, after decades of lackluster investment that saw countries such as Denmark and Belgium abandon the capability altogether. MBDA’s missiles have seen use in both the Ukrainian conflict and in the Middle East.

“We see a very high demand for our products,” Béranger said. “MBDA products are delivering on their mission, they are doing what they are expected to do, they are reliable. And because of this, we are each day receiving a lot of demands.”

MBDA’s Aster family of missiles is used in the SAMP/T air-defense system, the only European alternative to the American Patriot system, as well as for high-end air defense by the French, Italian and British navies. The missile maker had already targeted an Aster production increase of 50% between 2022 and the end of 2025.

Order intake for MBDA stood at €13.2 billion ($15.2 billion) in 2025, compared with €13.8 billion a year earlier. The order backlog at the end of December climbed to a record €44.4 billion euros, from €37 billion a year earlier. Sales jumped to €5.8 billion from €4.9 billion.

Europe accounted for 70% of MBDA’s order intake in 2025, a “very clear indicator” of the ramp up of demand in the region, according to the CEO. With Europe “massively rearming,” MBDA is expanding its European presence and creating new sites, he said.

MBDA produces a broad range of air-defense and strike missiles, including Mistral ground-based air-defense interceptors, the Meteor air-to-air missile, the SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow cruise missile and Exocet anti-ship weapon. The company says it already doubled missile production between 2023 and the end of 2025.

The CEO said MBDA’s integrated European model, with businesses in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany, allows the company to play a major role in both national defense programs as well as European cooperative initiatives. MBDA is owned by Airbus and the U.K.’s BAE Systems with a 37.5% stake each, with Italy’s Leonardo owning the remaining 25%.

To finance the growth, MBDA increased its investment plan for 2026-2030 to €5 billion from a planned €2.5 billion for the 2025-2029 period, according to Béranger. The company also plans to hire 2,800 additional workers in 2026.

“We are focusing very much on increasing our production, on increasing our capabilities, which means that we are investing a lot,” Béranger said. “For us the key question as an industrialist is where to size the production tool. Historically, MBDA has not been structured to produce in mass.”

The company’s MICA ground-to-air and air-to-air missile has been in high demand, and it’s one of the products where MBDA invested last year to increase production, though demand “has suddenly surged much beyond what we had anticipated.”

The French Air Force has been using MICA missiles to shoot down dozens of Shahed drones in defense of the United Arab Emirates, raising concerns about depleting stockpiles for the munition, Le Figaro reported earlier this month.

Meanwhile on Aster, MBDA has dedicated some specialized machinery to the model to boost output, whereas low production rates of the past meant those machines would be used to make several missile models.

“With the current surge in demand, we are specializing machines on the products which are in very high demand,” Béranger said. “We have done it with Aster. It’s almost totally done. We still have some machines that we have ordered which are not with us yet, but will come very soon.”

The company is also expanding capacity in its supply chain as well as in-house, and creation of a second Aster assembly line in Italy is in progress, according to Béranger. MBDA currently assembles the air-defense missile on a production line in France.

Béranger declined to say whether increased production will mean lower per-unit prices, saying that’s being discussed with customers, and that MBDA’s investments in production capacity will need to be reimbursed.

The company is seeing interest from Gulf countries for the SAMP/T system made by Eurosam, a consortium between MBDA and Thales, according to Béranger. He declined to identify the countries, saying there are direct contacts with MBDA as well as between governments.

The MBDA-led, French-British development of a stealthy cruise missile and a high-supersonic strike missile within the Stratus program has completed the assessment phase, with the next step being development. Italy has joined as a partner for the Stratus LO, the stealthy missile, Béranger said.

Within the Hydis2 consortium project led by MBDA to develop a hypersonic interceptor, the 19 partners have selected two potential concepts, which will be narrowed to one concept by the end of the year, according to Béranger.

MBDA is working with Airbus and Spain’s Sener on remote drone carriers as part of the troubled French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System, which is at risk of breakdown due to infighting between Airbus and Dassault Aviation over the next-generation fighter at the heart of the project.

Béranger said the remote-carrier partners are working together “very well,” with a lot of progress on development, and he expressed hope the cooperation continues no matter what happens to FCAS.

The company is talking with potential partners in Europe “beyond the usual countries of MBDA” about mass producing some of its designs, according to Béranger. MBDA has been expanding into massed weapons with the development of a relatively low-cost, one-way effector, similar to the Shahed drones used by Russia and Iran.

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——欧洲最大的导弹制造商MBDA首席执行官埃里克·贝朗热表示，该公司计划在2026年将其顶级Aster防空导弹的产量翻一番，这是为了应对激增的需求而做出的“绝对巨大的”增幅。

MBDA公司首席执行官贝朗热周四在新闻发布会上公布公司年度业绩时表示，公司今年的导弹总产量将提高40%，这是一个“非常显著”的增长。该公司还将把五年投资计划的规模扩大一倍，以帮助提升产能。

乌克兰和中东战争中导弹和无人机造成的破坏，使欧洲迫切需要加强防空能力建设。此前数十年，欧洲在防空领域的投资不足，导致丹麦和比利时等国彻底放弃了防空能力。MBDA公司的导弹已在乌克兰冲突和中东地区投入使用。

“我们看到市场对我们产品的需求非常高，”贝朗热说。“MBDA的产品能够出色地完成其使命，它们能够达到预期效果，而且非常可靠。正因如此，我们每天都会收到大量的订单。”

MBDA公司的“紫菀”（Aster）系列导弹被用于SAMP/T防空系统，该系统是美国“爱国者”（Patriot）防空系统的唯一欧洲替代方案，同时也被法国、意大利和英国海军用于高端防空系统。这家导弹制造商此前已计划在2022年至2025年底期间将“紫菀”导弹的产量提高50%。

MBDA 2025年的订单量预计为132亿欧元（152亿美元），高于上年同期的138亿欧元。截至12月底，订单积压量攀升至创纪录的444亿欧元，高于上年同期的370亿欧元。销售额也从49亿欧元跃升至58亿欧元。

MBDA首席执行官表示，预计到2025年，欧洲将占MBDA订单总量的70%，这“非常清晰地表明”了该地区需求的增长。他还表示，随着欧洲“大规模重新武装”，MBDA正在扩大其在欧洲的业务并新建生产基地。

MBDA公司生产多种防空和打击导弹，包括“西北风”陆基防空拦截导弹、“流星”空空导弹、“风暴阴影”巡航导弹和“飞鱼”反舰导弹。该公司表示，其导弹产量已在2023年至2025年底期间翻了一番。

首席执行官表示，MBDA的一体化欧洲模式，业务遍及法国、英国、意大利和德国，使其能够在各国国防项目和欧洲合作项目中发挥重要作用。MBDA由空中客车公司和英国BAE系统公司各持股37.5%，意大利莱昂纳多公司持有剩余的25%股份。

据贝朗热透露，为了支持业务增长，MBDA已将2026-2030年的投资计划从2025-2029年期间的25亿欧元提高至50亿欧元。该公司还计划在2026年新增2800名员工。

“我们正全力以赴提高产量和产能，这意味着我们正在进行大量投资，”贝朗热说道。“对我们这些工业家来说，关键问题在于如何确定生产规模。从历史上看，MBDA 的组织架构并非为大规模生产而设计的。”

该公司生产的 MICA 地空导弹和空空导弹一直备受追捧，MBDA 去年也投资扩大了该产品的产量，尽管需求“突然激增，远远超出了我们的预期”。

据《费加罗报》本月早些时候报道，法国空军一直在使用 MICA 导弹击落数十架 Shahed 无人机，以保卫阿拉伯联合酋长国，这引发了人们对弹药库存减少的担忧。

与此同时，MBDA公司为Aster导弹项目专门配备了一些专用机械，以提高产量。而过去由于产量低，这些机械原本会用于制造多种导弹型号。

“鉴于目前需求激增，我们正在对机器进行专门改造，以生产需求量极高的产品，”贝朗热说道。“我们已经对阿斯特公司进行了改造，目前几乎全部完成。我们还有一些订购的机器尚未到货，但很快就会到。”

据贝朗热透露，该公司正在扩大供应链和内部产能，并在意大利建设第二条“星”导弹组装线。目前，MBDA在法国的一条生产线上组装这种防空导弹。

贝朗热拒绝透露增产是否意味着单价下降，称公司正在与客户讨论此事，并表示MBDA对产能的投资需要得到补偿。

据贝朗热透露，海湾国家对MBDA和泰雷兹公司合资成立的Eurosam公司生产的SAMP/T系统表现出浓厚的兴趣。他拒绝透露具体是哪些国家，仅表示MBDA与这些国家之间以及各国政府之间都有直接联系。

由MBDA牵头、法英联合研发的“云霄飞车”（Stratus）计划，旨在研发隐形巡航导弹和高超音速打击导弹，目前已完成评估阶段，下一步将进入研发阶段。贝朗热表示，意大利已加入该计划，成为隐形导弹“云霄飞车LO”（Stratus LO）的合作伙伴。

据贝朗热称，在 MBDA 牵头的 Hydis2 联盟项目中，19 个合作伙伴已经选定了两个潜在概念，并将在年底前缩小到一个概念，以开发高超音速拦截器。

MBDA 正在与空中客车公司和西班牙 Sener 公司合作开发远程无人机载体，这是陷入困境的法德西未来作战空中系统的一部分。由于空中客车公司和达索航空公司之间就该项目核心的下一代战斗机问题发生内讧，该系统面临崩溃的风险。

贝朗热表示，远程运营商合作伙伴之间的合作“非常顺利”，在研发方面取得了很大进展，他希望无论FCAS未来发生什么，这种合作都能继续下去。

据贝朗热透露，该公司正在与欧洲“除MBDA传统业务所在国之外”的潜在合作伙伴洽谈，商讨大规模生产其部分设计方案。MBDA一直在拓展大规模武器业务，开发了一种成本相对较低的单向效应器，类似于俄罗斯和伊朗使用的“沙赫德”无人机。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。