MBDA welcomes the industrial agreement recently finalised to prepare the Future Air Combat System (FCAS). Following the first phases of FCAS work, the signing of this agreement is a change in scale for this programme and lays the foundations for a large-scale European industrial partnership. Phase 1B is primarily a phase of technological maturation. In co-operation with its partners, Airbus Defense and Space GmbH and the Spanish consortium SATNUS, MBDA will design ‘Remote Carrier’ demonstrators and conduct experiments in connected collaborative combat, both simulated and in-flight. In particular, MBDA will be responsible for the demonstrator of Remote Carriers that can be fired from combat aircraft.
The Future Combat Air System (FCAS), French: Système de combat aérien du futur; SCAF; Spanish: Futuro Sistema Aéreo de Combate; FSAC) is a European combat system of systems under development by Dassault Aviation, Airbus and Indra Sistemas. The FCAS will consist of a Next-Generation Weapon System (NGWS) as well as other air assets in the future operational battlespace. The NGWS’s components will be remote carrier vehicles (swarming drones) as well as a New Generation Fighter (NGF) – a sixth-generation jet fighter that by around 2040 will replace current France’s Rafales, Germany’s Typhoons and Spain’s EF-18 Hornets.
As the leader in effects management, MBDA will principally develop new effectors, the Remote Carriers. They are multipliers of the tactical options available to our armed forces. Remote Carriers will force adversaries to reveal themselves, will disrupt them, confuse them and/or saturate them to finally neutralise the threats they pose, which continue to become ever more effective. Capable of operating in packs or individually, the Remote Carriers will cover all areas of combat, from air combat, to maritime operations, and ground strikes. With a long experience of European industrial co-operation, MBDA’s teams are proud to be contributing to the future of combat aviation.
MBDA is a European multinational developer and manufacturer of missiles. It was created in December 2001 after the merger of the main French, British and Italian missile systems companies. They were the missile businesses of Aérospatiale-Matra (now Airbus), BAE Systems and Finmeccanica (now Leonardo). “MBDA” is an initialism of the names of said missile businesses: Matra, BAe Dynamics and Alenia. The company’s headquarters are located in Le Plessis-Robinson, France. Despite being a European joint venture, MBDA has maintained national divisions since its creation: MBDA France, MBDA UK and MBDA Italy. They were formed by simply grouping in their respective countries the assets and activities of the various French, British and Italian businesses that had merged to create MBDA.
