The UK is to rebuild its sovereign hypersonic target capability after a gap of more than a decade, with a £20 million contract awarded to Lockheed Martin UK and its small business partners, Defence Minister Luke Pollard has announced.
Speaking at the AGF Defence Summit at the Farnborough International Airshow, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry said the award forms part of a commitment to spend more on novel technologies and fill inherited capability gaps. “Today we’re awarding a £20 million pound contract to Lockheed Martin UK and their collaboration with SMEs to rebuild Britain’s sovereign hypersonic target capability, filling a gap of more than a decade,” he said, as quoted in the transcript of the speech. “This investment in advanced capabilities will need to test and strengthen our air defences. It will support our small businesses and around 60 skilled jobs in Bedfordshire and inject £2 million pounds into the supply chain including into multiple UK SMEs that will benefit.”
Hypersonic targets are the test articles against which air defence radars, interceptors and crews are proven, flying the speed and manoeuvre profiles of the threat weapons now proliferating, and the absence of a sovereign capability has meant reliance on allies for a class of test asset in heavy demand as every Western nation races to harden its defences against hypersonic and high-speed ballistic threats. The Bedfordshire jobs point to Lockheed Martin UK’s Ampthill site, and the Minister said the award signals “that defence is returning to some of the more demanding frontiers of aerospace,” as quoted in the transcript.
The contract is part of a wider innovation push Pollard set out in the speech, including the new ring-fenced annual defence innovation budget of £400 million and a target to spend at least 10 per cent of the annual equipment budget on novel technologies, policies he said are placing UK aerospace at the leading edge of autonomous combat air power. Across the Defence Investment Plan, he confirmed £5 billion is being invested in drones and other advanced uncrewed systems, an increase of £1 billion on previous plans.
The Minister, speaking the morning after the reshuffle that brought Wes Streeting to the Ministry of Defence, opened with the candour of a man awaiting news of his own position, joking that he had left his phone on loud at the back of the room in case the Prime Minister rang, and he trailed further announcements to come, telling delegates there was “good news coming on GCAP later today” and that the new Defence Secretary would have “an exciting announcement” on the timeline for the Storm Fighter uncrewed combat aircraft programme tomorrow.
The air and space portfolio he described spans the £31 billion four-year investment confirmed in the plan, Typhoon sustainment into the 2040s, the ground being laid for the F-35As compatible with NATO’s nuclear mission, and the jet trainer recapitalisation that will ultimately deliver new aircraft for the Red Arrows.
UK to rebuild hypersonic target capability after decade
