MBDA’s Land Ceptor air defense system has successfully destroyed its target during an end-to-end system demonstration firing at the Vidsel Test Range in Sweden, an important milestone for the project prior to entry to service with the British Army.

Land Ceptor utilizes the proven Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) currently in production and delivering a common stockpile to meet the air defense needs of both the British Army and the Royal Navy (as Sea Ceptor). In British Army service Land Ceptor will replace the current Rapier air defense system and provides a step-change in capability, including over triple the range and the ability to intercept a much more challenging target set.

The system demonstration trial showcased the maturity of the Land Ceptor system across a full engagement sequence. This included launcher deployment; munition loading; receipt of air tracks from a Giraffe-AMB radar; air track processing by Land Ceptor’s onboard command and control (C2) system; and execution of a full engagement chain, with two-way data exchange with the missile during its mid-course fly-out phase, and successful interception and destruction of a target using the missile’s seeker in the terminal phase.

Land Ceptor with CAMM is the latest generation of air defense system, providing exceptional capability from very short ranges (VSHORAD) below 1 km into the medium range air defense (MRAD) tier beyond 25km. Key features of CAMM are its next generation solid-state active radar seeker, two way data-link, low-signature rocket motor and its 360° soft-vertical launch system. These combine to enable the missile to rapidly intercept the most challenging and dangerous of threats including saturation attacks from precision guided munitions and maneuvering high-speed missiles emerging late from low altitude and from multiple directions simultaneously.

The demonstration in Vidsel coincides with the transition into production of the Land Ceptor weapon system, which will now undergo system-of-system integration and test as part of the British Army’s Sky Sabre air defense architecture. It is the latest in a series of highly successful trials of CAMM and its related systems over several years that have consistently proven its maturity and game changing performance.

The Royal Navy has recently conducted a large set of service acceptance trials of its related Sea Ceptor system. Sea Ceptor, which uses the same CAMM interceptor, has been introduced into service to replace the Vertical Launch Seawolf system on the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates. The Sea Ceptor system provides a major step-change in capability for the Royal Navy’s frigates, as they will gain the ability to protect other ships within their local area, in addition to having an excellent self-defense capability. Sea Ceptor will also be fitted to the Royal Navy’s future Type 26 and Type 31e frigates.

Land Ceptor is the UK launch configuration of the Enhanced Modular Air Defense Solutions (EMADS) product family. EMADS brings together best-of-breed systems and technologies from across MBDA’s European base to save time, development costs and provide a flexible system for air defense provision. EMADS has been designed for ease of integration with existing equipment and infrastructure through modular design and use of standard interfaces. CAMM is a family of missiles that includes CAMM-ER which shares all the same components as CAMM other than a larger rocket motor to extend its range out to beyond 40 km.

With a significant presence in five European countries and within the USA, in 2017 MBDA achieved a turnover of 3.1 billion Euros with an order book of 16.8 billion Euros. With more than 90 armed forces customers in the world, MBDA is a world leader in missiles and missile systems.

MBDA is the only European group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems that correspond to the full range of current and future operational needs of the three armed forces (land, sea and air).

In total, the group offers a range of 45 missile systems and countermeasures products already in operational service and more than 15 others currently in development.

MBDA is jointly held by Airbus (37.5%), BAE Systems (37.5%), and Leonardo (25%).