The Ministry of Defence has awarded \u00a33.16 million to three suppliers to develop\u00a0low\u2011cost\u00a0interceptors\u00a0designed to shoot down drones.
\nThe programme is part of a\u00a0five\u2011nation\u00a0European effort to counter\u00a0large\u2011scale\u00a0drone and missile threats.
\nContracts will\u00a0support jobs across SMEs based\u00a0in Cambridge,\u00a0Milton Keynes,\u00a0Bristol\u00a0and Stevenage.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Defence has awarded \u00a33.16 million to three suppliers to develop new\u00a0low\u2011cost\u00a0interceptors\u00a0designed to shoot down drones and other airborne threats. The UK is the first of five European partner nations to award contracts under a joint programme to strengthen air defence.<\/p>\n
These\u00a0interceptors are designed to\u00a0provide\u00a0a more affordable way to counter drones. This is increasingly important as countries\u00a0begin to\u00a0use\u00a0large numbers of cheap,\u00a0mass-produced\u00a0drones that can overwhelm\u00a0traditional\u00a0air defence systems, which are more expensive and slower to produce. In March 2026, Russia launched the equivalent of more than 200 drones per day into Ukraine, highlighting the scale of the challenge.<\/p>\n
The programme, called\u00a0Low\u2011Cost\u00a0Air Defence Effectors (LCADE), is being delivered by the\u00a0National Armaments\u00a0Director (NAD)\u00a0Group as part of a wider\u00a0European\u00a0effort known as\u00a0Low\u2011Cost\u00a0Effectors and Autonomous Platforms (LEAP).<\/p>\n
LEAP brings together five\u00a0countries\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the\u00a0UK, Poland, France,\u00a0Italy\u00a0and Germany\u00a0\u2013\u00a0to develop affordable\u00a0effectors and autonomous systems. Each country is running its own\u00a0national\u00a0competition,\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0followed by a multilateral phase, with the aim of stimulating growth across\u00a0the\u00a0European\u00a0defence industry, enhancing collaboration and delivering solutions to our nations\u2019\u00a0warfighters.<\/p>\n
The programme supports the NAD Group\u2019s mission to strengthen the UK\u2019s defence capabilities by working closely with industry, speeding up\u00a0innovation\u00a0and delivering equipment faster. It also supports jobs and manufacturing in the UK, while working with international partners to develop solutions that can be produced at scale and used by allied forces.<\/p>\n
The three successful companies\u00a0are\u00a0Frankenberg Technologies,\u00a0Greenjets\u00a0and Cambridge Aerospace,\u00a0who\u00a0will now develop and trial their designs. All are small or medium\u2011sized businesses. Cambridge Aerospace has\u00a0only recently been\u00a0identified\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Ministry of Defence,\u00a0demonstrating\u00a0the value of widening access to new market entrants.\u00a0Each has a UK presence and has committed to building manufacturing capability in the UK, helping to support jobs\u00a0across all SMEs\u00a0and contribute to regional economic growth.<\/p>\n
The contracts were delivered by\u00a0Commercial X<\/a>, a\u00a0NAD Group\u00a0team tasked with accelerating the pace of procurement\u00a0and\u00a0reducing\u00a0barriers\u00a0to\u00a0entry\u00a0to\u00a0smaller companies\u00a0to\u00a0get groundbreaking innovation to the frontline, faster.\u00a0They have\u00a0been responsible for\u00a0getting suppliers rapidly on contract to deliver the\u00a0Government\u2019s\u00a0hypersonic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0directed energy weapons<\/a>\u00a0programmes, as well as recently\u00a0signing contracts<\/a>\u00a0worth up to \u00a34 million with\u00a013\u00a0future British \u2018unicorns\u2019.<\/p>\n The next phase will focus on\u00a0identifying\u00a0solutions\u00a0that can\u00a0potentially\u00a0be produced in large numbers across the five partner nations. This will require strong manufacturing capacity and reliable supply chains to ensure the systems can be delivered quickly and at scale.<\/p>\n National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce said:<\/p>\n \u201cWith the award of these contracts, Commercial X and the LCADE programme are demonstrating the powerful, low-cost capabilities we can deliver when we open up Defence and collaborate with some of the UK\u2019s most agile, innovative companies. Through the LEAP programme, we are joining forces across borders to rapidly procure new systems, supporting both the UK and our allies against the growing mass drone threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Anmol Manohar, Chief Executive Officer for\u00a0Greenjets,\u00a0said:<\/p>\n \u201cWe are extremely proud to have been awarded this contract under LCADE and to be demonstrating the role innovative British businesses can play in rapidly strengthening national defence capabilities. We look forward to working with the MoD and our partners as we move into demonstration trials later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ministry of Defence has awarded \u00a33.16 million to three suppliers to develop\u00a0low\u2011cost\u00a0interceptors\u00a0designed to shoot down drones. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}