The Ministry of Defence is asking industry to design affordable, single-use engines for munitions and one-way attack systems, in a tender that addresses one of the key components behind the low-cost strike weapons the Defence Investment Plan commits Britain to fielding at scale.
Project CALLISTO, published on the government’s Contracts Finder on 6 July by Defence Equipment and Support at Abbey Wood, seeks “affordable, single use engines for current and future air systems, munitions and One Way systems, to bridge the performance gap between hobbyist, model aircraft engines and higher performance, long-life and more exquisite engines.”
The £750,000 contract covers the design, development and ground testing of four prototype engines, which the tender states “must be affordable and scalable,” with any future scaled production excluded from this competition and subject to separate procurement if required.
The requirement is split into two lots, with tenderers able to bid for one or both. CALLISTO LIGHT covers a smaller engine producing 750 newtons of thrust, while CALLISTO HEAVY covers a more powerful engine in the 1.8 to 2 kilonewton class, thrust ranges associated with target drones, one-way effectors and small cruise missiles. The competition closes at noon on 27 July, with the contract running from 16 October 2026 to 31 March 2027 under an open below-threshold procedure that the notice marks as suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Conventional cruise missile engines are precision-built for reliability and long shelf life, and their cost and production rate constrain how cheaply and quickly the weapons around them can be made, while hobbyist-grade engines lack the performance and consistency that a military munition requires. An engine designed from the outset to be thrown away after a single flight can dispense with the durability and much of the cost that a reusable powerplant demands, and the war in Ukraine has seen both sides field one-way weapons in the thousands built around exactly this class of propulsion.
As the reliability % will be lower this will presumably be limit launch locations to where a dead dropped munition doesn’t matter?
Reliability would not necessarily be significantly lower.
The key issue is ease of manufacturing and cost of materials.
Maintenance would not be an issue and neither would flying hours (above about 10)..
Deciding cost and therefore component quality will reduce reliability.
Perfection comes with very high costs.
Oh I don’t know Henry Ford delivered a low cost car just by using a production line. Obviously the components were cheaper and you could only have it in black but it did the job and definitely without perfection.
It’s possible to design an engine to very reliably have a short service life.
E.g. using cheaper alloys in the turnine blades that will oxidise 10 times as fast – just means 1/10th the service interval, but doesn’t make the engine less reliable within that period.
True.
But t oh get down to the stated price points goes further than that?
Plenty of Adours knocking about.
Underrated comment 🤣😂🤣😂
How about using Old Harley Davidson Engines …. they are junk already ? 🫡
Yes perfect for ‘cruise’ missiles and will be perfect for any targets alongside Route 66 which is looking more likely these days.
Out of interest Davidson was a Scotsman and as a company, as UK bikes like BSA and Triumph decimated the US bike industry they managed to survive almost alone by specifically going the mythical good old American heritage route where many Americans probably think they were in the back of every wagon train going West, rather than make modern bikes and little has changed since. Mind you our industry barely lasted a further decade.
Triumph have done pretty well since “The New Guy” took on the task though…. whereas all the other old British Brands are now Chinese or Indian.
I’m looking to add another “Trumpet” to my collection as we speak !
Anyway, yes When Harley met Davidson, they sort of created a dream/nightmare Ya’ll Yee Haaaaaa.
Not stealthy enough! You can hear them from 10 miles away.
Ha ha…. Ten miles and It takes about an hour to get there.
Have I mentioned I hate HD’s ?
Bunch of Ugly fat old blokes with Henna Tat’s and Patches riding Ugly Fat Bikes thinking they are American Heroes.
Seriously chaps, give your heads a wobble.
Hmm, Hardly moving son strike drones that can go 60 ish mph in a straight line, when they work, interesting idea.
Tell me, would there have to be provision for a fat 50 somthing rebel without a clue to ride them Halfwit🤔🤔
Yes John… the more the merrier …. Personally I’d be really happy If they all made a one way trip to oblivion rather than holding up all the traffic with their “Hunks of Junk”.
It’s like a bunch of Attention deprived kids making noise and pretending to be badass’s.
🤦♂️
You’ve met my in law then🤣🤣
Hes in an MCC, he once told me, I’ll quote here ” people get intimidated when they see us coming ”
My obvious reply was ” what is remotely scary about a load of 50 somthing fat blokes???”
Buffet raider Rebels without a clue….
I just laugh.
It was that film with Clint Eastwood and Clyde that did It for me !
“Right Turn Clyde”
“The Black Widows” lol.
No, no good.
These engines have to work in the rain.
Well that’s the Hardly moving son engines out of the running then!
‘Disposable’ and ‘missile’ are two words that already have a pretty strong working relationship 😬
A bigger version of the MD-TJ42 perhaps.
Are there missile engines there aren’t disposable?!!!
I see where you’re coming from, but I suppose most are rocket engines of one variety or another.
The missile jet engines are mainly US (I think), so its an effort to create a range of UK engines…
It seems like a rare bit of common sense 🤔
Time for Mr Heath and Mr Robinson again !