UK Royal Navy to equip MBDA’s drone-frying lasers by 2027

PARIS — MBDA UK won an order to supply the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy with the DragonFire drone-zapping laser in a £316 million ($414 million) deal, with the first of the direct-energy weapons for drone defense to be fitted on a navy destroyer by 2027.

DragonFire successfully took down a high-speed drone in recent trials at the Hebrides testing range in Scotland, and will be the first high-power laser capability to enter service from a European nation, the MoD said in a Nov. 20 statement .

With relatively low-cost drones having become ubiquitous on the modern battlefield, the race has been on to find economically viable countermeasures. The DragonFire laser system costs £10 a shot, compared to upwards of hundreds of thousands of pounds per shot for traditional missile-based air defense, according to the MoD.

“This high-power laser will see our Royal Navy at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, delivering a cutting-edge capability to help defend the U.K. and our allies in this new era of threat,” Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard said in the statement.

MBDA UK is working on DragonFire together with QinetiQ and Leonardo, with the capability to be delivered almost five years ahead of the original schedule, according tot the MoD, which said the system is accurate enough to hit a £1 coin from a kilometer away.

“This latest contract for DragonFire is another significant milestone,” MBDA UK Managing Director Chris Allam said. “It allows us to continue with the next phase of the program and re-affirms the U.K.’s intent to be at the forefront of laser directed energy weapons.”

The DragonFire laser system in January 2024 for the first time destroyed an aerial target with a high-powered test shot. In the most recent tests, the weapon shot down drones that can fly up to 650 kilometers per hour, the MoD said.

The U.K.’s Strategic Defence Review backed the country’s work on directed energy weapons with additional investments of nearly £1 billion for the current parliamentary term, the MoD said. Work on DragonFire will help to create and sustain 590 jobs across the U.K., according to the ministry.

MBDA will deliver the new systems to the Royal Navy from 2027, with DragonFire to be fitted to a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer by that time.

While pan-European MBDA is best known for missile systems such as Mistral and the Aster family of air-defense effectors, the company is involved in laser projects in all its main stakeholder countries. Executives are betting that laser directed-energy weapons will be part of any future layered air defense.

Rheinmetall and MBDA last month supplied Germany with a laser-weapon demonstrator for naval use, while the missile maker is working with Leonardo in Italy to develop a light laser weapon for navy units. MBDA together with Safran in 2022 acquired a majority stake in French laser company Cilas, which has been developing the Helma-P counter-UAS weapon for France’s armed forces.

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——MBDA英国公司赢得了一份价值3.16亿英镑（4.14亿美元）的订单，将向英国皇家海军供应DragonFire无人机激光武器，首批用于无人机防御的定向能武器将于2027年安装在海军驱逐舰上。

英国国防部在 11 月 20 日的一份声明中表示，DragonFire 激光武器在最近于苏格兰赫布里底群岛试验场进行的试验中成功击落了一架高速无人机，并将成为欧洲国家首个投入使用的高功率激光武器。

随着成本相对较低的无人机在现代战场上普及，寻找经济可行的反制措施的竞赛已经展开。据英国国防部称，龙火激光系统每次发射成本仅为10英镑，而传统的导弹防空系统每次发射成本则高达数十万英镑。

“这款高功率激光器将使我们的皇家海军处于北约创新前沿，提供尖端能力，帮助英国和我们的盟友在这个新的威胁时代保卫家园，”国防战备和工业部长卢克·波拉德在声明中表示。

据英国国防部称，MBDA 英国公司正与 QinetiQ 和 Leonardo 合作开发 DragonFire 系统，该系统有望比原计划提前近五年交付。国防部还表示，该系统的精度足以从一公里外击中 1 英镑硬币。

MBDA英国公司总经理克里斯·阿拉姆表示：“这份最新的‘龙火’导弹合同是又一个重要的里程碑。它使我们能够继续推进该项目的下一阶段，并再次表明英国致力于在激光定向能武器领域保持领先地位的决心。”

国防部表示，2024年1月，龙火激光系统首次通过高功率试射摧毁了空中目标。在最近的测试中，该武器击落了飞行速度高达每小时650公里的无人机。

英国国防部表示，英国战略防务评估报告支持该国在定向能武器领域的研究，并在本届议会任期内追加近10亿英镑的投资。国防部还称，“龙火”项目将有助于在英国各地创造和维持590个就业岗位。

MBDA 将于 2027 年开始向英国皇家海军交付新系统，届时 DragonFire 将安装在英国皇家海军的 45 型驱逐舰上。

虽然泛欧企业MBDA最知名的产品是“西北风”导弹系统和“紫菀”系列防空武器，但该公司在其所有主要利益相关国都参与了激光项目。高管们认为，激光定向能武器将成为未来多层防空体系的重要组成部分。

莱茵金属公司和MBDA公司上个月向德国提供了一款用于海军的激光武器演示样机，同时这家导弹制造商正与意大利的莱昂纳多公司合作，为海军部队研发一款轻型激光武器。2022年，MBDA公司与赛峰集团共同收购了法国激光公司Cilas的多数股权，该公司一直在为法国武装部队研发Helma-P反无人机系统武器。

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。