LAAD 2019: MBDA’s Brazilian interests

Present for more than 40 years in South America through its founding companies, MBDA focused on the best of European missile technology and know-how at LAAD. This included the Meteor air superiority missile that is in operational service with the Swedish Air Forces Gripen, the latest variant of which, the Gripen E is in production for the Brazilian Air Force. The Brazilian Navy, which is bringing France’s Scorpène submarines and H225M helicopters into service, is arming them with the more advanced versions of MBDA’s Exocet anti-ship missile.

MBDA also highlighted the success of its Sea Ceptor, the next-generation, ship-based, all-weather, air defence weapon system in Latin America. Sea Ceptor provides protection against all known and projected air targets. The weapon system is now in full-scale development for the UK MOD for the Royal Navy’s Type 23 and Type 26 frigates, and has been selected by the Chilean Navy for its Type 23 and the Brazilian Navy’s for its new Tamandaré-class corvettes. For the Brazilian programme MBDA and Lockheed Martin have completed trials aimed at qualifying the integration of Sea Ceptor with Lockheed Martin’s Extensible Launching System (ExLS) stand-alone launcher.