The Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) has announced an agreement to accelerate and expand the production of Aster missiles for France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
The agreement, signed on 11 March 2025, marks a significant step in enhancing European air defence capabilities in response to evolving security threats, say OCCAR.
OCCAR Director Joachim Sucker and Eurosam Managing Director Anne Diaz De Tuesta signed Amendment 15 of the FSAF-PAAMS Sustainment & Enhancement (S&E) contract. According to OCCAR, the amendment “focuses on the improvement of European production capabilities for Aster missiles in order to accelerate and increase the production for the Ground and Naval Air Defence systems employed by the three Nations’ forces.”
The contract modification will allow Eurosam and its affiliate MBDA to deliver Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles within a shorter timeframe.
The three nations’ defence procurement agencies—Italy’s Segretariato Generale della Difesa (SGD), France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), and the UK’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S)—collaborated closely with OCCAR to finalise the contract. OCCAR described the amendment as “a further catalyst that promotes and reinforces the existing cooperation amongst the three nations.”
The Aster missile family forms a key component of various European air defence systems, equipping the navies, air forces, and armies of France, Italy, and the UK.
OCCAR highlighted the agreement’s importance within the “current geopolitical environment,” reinforcing the need for “upgraded Air-Defence systems to face increasingly more challenging threats.” The deal also supports the ongoing development of the SAMP/T New Generation air defence system.
The contract modification is part of broader European efforts to strengthen integrated air and missile defence capabilities amid growing concerns over aerial threats.
France just approved it. The speed of manufacturing all types of missiles, especially Aster has increased a lot. The same thing is happening for Mistral and Mica.
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increasing the numbers of systems massively would be a good policy our towns and cities are almost totally unprotected. yet for all the talk of investigating in this, and then that the physical ability to protect ourselves from saying cruise missile attacks, we waste millions of pounds of overpriced rubbish on ridiculous ideas from the fantasy factory in the MOD
It seems plan do exist in MBDA to create rapidly factories. So I don’t think assembly is the issue. raw materials, chips, trained technicians and so on may be a bit more tricky. For France, we have the order to double the current ground force, from 8 to 17 batteries. Though, 8*8 missiles, for 17 batteries = 1088 missiles. For a single load. If you rearm it… Severall times… so the issue of ramping up production is serious. It was reported that 64 patriote missiles were launched at 1 Kinzal. Patriote is Shoot, Shoot, See, where Aster is shoot, see, shoot. Aster consume less. But investment have to be made on exo atmosphérique véhicules as well.
Math. Thanks for your post. It’s great to hear first hand what’s happening in Europe.
Here in the UK we’re in a right mess after the Tories left with huge issues on excessive welfare and benefits bill, pension triple lock, clearing NHS elective back log, infrastructure having had virtually zero investment and now huge demands to re-arm our military after nothing but cuts.
I applaud Macron and the French government for committing to double their military by 2030. Just wish our government would get serious and wake up to the absolute peril the UK is in. Instead we hide behind USA, Poland, Ukraine and now France to do the heavy lifting. Shameful really.
The UK needs an integrated air defence system
We absolutely should have SAMP/T batteries to protect key infrastructure, military bases and cities. We absolutely should order more land Ceptor batteries and a radar guided guns system like Bofors 40mm and definitely should have direct energy weapons and ECM/ ECCM as final line of defences.
Will our forthcoming SDSR address any of those issues. Doubt it very much. Not when tens of thousands are crossing the channel every year from France demanding housing, benefits and asylum.
The new order is for 218 Aster 15 and 30 missiles, plus more rapid delivery of a previous order for 132 missiles. It’s not stated how many of these missiles are for the UK (Aster 30 B1 variant only), but probably less than a third given that we use only Aster to arm the six T45’s. Note that the missiles are developed and manufactured in France and Italy – with almost zero UK content. The UK is just an export customer, paying over Euro 2 million (c.£1.7 million) a missile. No wonder Sea Ceptor (about £0.2 million a missile) is being fitted to the T45’s, essentially replacing Aster 15.
You might be surprised at how many parts of the A30 are UK made.
I was very surprised to find out that the casings are made in the UK.
But I quite agree sovereign is very important and cost effective is also very important – so we can make them and afford to make them.
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Although obviously a positive measure, does anyone else believe that the number of missiles ordered is underwhelming? Especially when divided between multiple services. Dunno, thought that multiples of order number, or even an order of magnitude increase would be appropriate, given recent events. 😁
A full load out of 48 Aster 30’s for 6 T45’s won’t leave any change from £5 billion!!!! It’s a questimation, but I doubt if the RN currently has more than 100 Aster 30’s on hand. Hopefully we can sell on the small stock of Aster 15’s when they start to become surplus c.2028.
All of the RN Aster 15 stock’s are to be remanufactured/upgraded into Aster 30’s,this has been known for some time.
A matter of booster.
48 x £2m is £96m, times six that is £580m. You got the decimal place wrong.
” does anyone else believe that the number of missiles ordered is underwhelming?”
It is. It is a top end missile and should not be employed against drones and low value targets.
Is the B1 missile the ASTER 30 Block 1? The ABM capable one?
Makes sense though doesn’t it? It’s just economics. If we have sea Ceptor at 200K each shooting down a budget cruise missiles worth <500k then that's reasonable expenditure. Firing a very high performance Aster 30 at said missile is a net loss.
Radar guided guns, direct energy weapons equalise the equation
Time for a UK production facility?
why? the UK is not part of Eurosam.
We can still build them under license.
possibly if you were ordering many missiles it may make economic sense, but the UK only uses Aster on Type 45 and no plans to use Aster on other ships nor does UK have any ground bases systems like SAMP/T.
We need SAMP/T though.
UK is part of Twister?
..uk manufacturing of Aster would be inefficient without economies of scale. Europe needs to focus on volume at lowest unit cost for that volume. hopefully high end Aster would see low turnover while CAMM becomes weapon of choice for higher turnover Uav / Drone / cruise engagement
Nice shot of HMS Duncan (the CEC antennas are a dead giveaway). Has the list of escorts for the CSG 25 deployment been disclosed yet?
Nothing definitive that i have seen,with such a small Fleet now it can’t be easy to get every Escort Ready for what will be a long Deployment.I think HMS’s Dauntless and Richmond are a safe bet ,Dragon is a possibility too if two T45’s are deemed essential,plus HNoMS Roald Amundsen.
BBC coverage if Reeves at Babcocks had the T31s in the Assembly Hall in the background. Not sure about the progress on either Hull.
Methinks, if the UK wants to save some money and maybe weight, with the mk41s, can the six silo CAMM vls be further developed to not only take more CAMM but CAMM-MR and also the FC/ASW?
Are the chickens coming home to roost for the MOD and these globalist politicians, panic ? And yes it is a weaknesses that we rely on a foreign country to manufacturer them: its a good job its by private business.
We really really need to..we also need to up our conventional deterrents, as in our abilities to really hurt Russia in meaningful and obvious ways ( Putin needs to see our ability to be able to make lots of big obvious explosions on Russian infrastructure for it to deter him…defence is not a deterrent). Russia now see the UK as essentially its number one enemy..we are the leaders of anti Russian sentiment in Europe..if he comes for anyone I actually think it may now be us.
Shot their load in the red sea then
Interesting that HMS Diamond had to put into Gibraltar to restock missiles after her Red Sea action. Makes me think then that the missile silo wasn’t completely full to begin with as there is no way she fired off 48 Aster missiles during her action.
Not sure what the normal loadout is but seems that she had a quarter of a full silo before needing to replenish.
to be fair i don’t think a ship waits to shoot all its missiles before reloading. more likely that when you shot half of the missiles you go for a reload, otherwise the Type 45 would basically be defenseless from the Red Sea to Gibraltar which would be an expensive gamble to take.
my 2 cents
Can we please please have 6-8 fire batteries ( four launchers) of Aster 30 1NT/block 2 BMD for UK Air Defence. A further 9-12 batteriers (six launcher per fire battery) of CAMM-CAMM ER would give the UK a good ground base air defence against a supprise cruise missile attack from a SSGN. If I could I would also couple these fire locations with a Sky Ranger 35mm battery (four guns).
What is intersting is that the UK has a very good air defence radar network. It could be improved with the E-7 and possibly Airlander but if we could couple that with SAMP/T 1NT-BMD and Sky Sabre with a point defence of Sky Ranger for the Air Defence locations then the UK could have a very good air defence. From 300km to 170km Typhoons, 150km-30km at 25km alt to 10km alt Aster, 25km to 3km at 10km alt and below CAMM, point defence Sky Ranger.
Locations for fire batteries of Aster, Lossie, Clyde, Dartmoor, Lincolnshire RAF Wittering area, Winter Hill (Blackburn), London area. If we could get two more fire batteries they would be mobile and used either for further home defence or allocated to the main RAF overseas base. Sky Sabre locations would be within 5km of SAMP/T.
Anyway that is how I would deal with air defence UK.
probably a lot more than 6 would be needed to protect major urban areas, key military facilities, ports, power stations etc….
but you also need manpower because a SAMP/T system with 6 launchers, radar, command, power etc… requires 130 men, Patriot is more like 300 men from what i have read
AFAIK, the upgraded SAMP/T NG with Block 1NT is expected for delievry some time this year and in service in 2026.
edit sorry 130 mean is for 2 batteries of SAMP/T NG whcih also include field maintenance (mechanical and sigital), reloads. so 65 for 1 system
also worth noting that SAMP/T will also be accompanied by shorter range systems like VL MICA, whcih can be integrated with the SAMPT command and control workstations and radar.. DK is considering a SAMPT with NASAMS mix
Nice one Ron! Like ir. Not really related but i’d like to see a 3rd naval base, up near Leith/Rosyth area. Too much naval concentration down in the South. Need sonething closer to North sea/far North. Could house a small squadron of 4 SSKN to work with drones/motherships/patrol frigates and Norwegian/ German subs, free up the Astutes for further afield. My 5c.
Accelerating production in France…
All Numbers in the press are now sensitive, so let’s assume we know nothing. We just know that equipments are produced in larger quantities.