MBDA announced that production has commenced of the Brimstone 2 missile at the Lostock and Henlow manufacturing facilities in England. The missile incorporates the latest mmW radar and semi active laser Dual Mode Seeker capability, an Insensitive Munition (IM) rocket motor and warhead, and a new and stronger airframe for increased air carriage robustness.

This new missile will enter service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) on Tornado GR4s and is now contracted to be evaluated for Typhoon.

Brimstone 2 provides greater operational flexibility by enhancing guidance capabilities against challenging targets and through a step change in IM compliance which significantly improves operator, maintainer and platform safety on operations and reduces the logistics burden of operational deployments.

Entering series production is a key step to the fielding of the weapon on the RAF’s platforms and follows the successful Qualification of the Brimstone 2 IM rocket motor and IM warhead, which are both in series production. MBDA took receipt of the first production batch of rocket motors on the 10th June 2014 from Roxel and the warheads on the 30th June from TDW.

Tornado GR4 will benefit first whilst activities are also underway to assess Brimstone 2 for use on Typhoon. Following the award of a study contract to BAE Systems from UK Department of Defense (DoD), on 18th June 2014 MBDA signed a contract with BAE Systems to support the evaluation of Typhoon integration of Brimstone 2.