Aerospace

BAE has moved missile-tracking satellites closer to the factory floor. A completed design review now shifts Epoch 2 from architecture definition towards production.

Babcock is reshaping how smaller suppliers enter defence programmes today. Its SME charter targets contracting friction, test access, and payment discipline across the UK industrial base.

The Air Force is withholding fresh tanker orders from Boeing. That turns the KC-46’s unresolved boom, vision, and quality defects into a production test for a programme the service still expects to anchor US tanker recapitalisation.

Integrated air defence is becoming a software and manufacturing contest. Leonardo’s Michelangelo programme is now moving toward a Ukraine test, turning a new multi-domain air defence concept into an early industrial and operational proving ground.

Anduril is expanding deeper into space defence manufacturing capability now. The ExoAnalytic acquisition adds a global tracking network, missile-sensing expertise, and a 130-person engineering team as the company pushes into space domain awareness and infrared satellite payloads.

Romania and Ukraine have formalised plans for joint drone production. The agreement could move Ukrainian defence manufacturing into Romania under SAFE-backed financing, giving Bucharest a direct role in scaling combat-proven systems inside the EU and NATO industrial base.

Britain has brought ultrahigh-temperature composite manufacturing capability onshore at last. Dstl-backed work at Cross Manufacturing creates a pilot-scale domestic route for ceramic matrix composites aimed at hypersonic, space, and propulsion programmes.

Belgium is testing cheaper airborne counter-drone firepower on F-16s now. The trials pair the Belgian-made FZ275 laser-guided rocket with six LAU-131 launchers, pointing to a manufacturing push around affordable precision effectors.

Embraer is expanding the A-29’s mission set again. A new partnership with Valkyrie Aero adds AI-enabled counter-UAS capability to a turboprop platform already valued for endurance, lower operating cost, and austere-field flexibility.

Thales has packaged layered air defence into one exportable architecture. SkyDefender combines radars, effectors, satellites, and AI-enabled command-and-control into a modular system aimed at customers seeking faster integration, broader interoperability, and a more repeatable route to fielding multi-layer protection.