France committed on Aster 30 Block 1 upgrade

MBDA has been given the green light by France to proceed with the Aster Block 1 New Technology program. The contract was signed by Direction Générale de l’Armement with Eurosam consortium on Dec. 23 2015.

MBDA Aster p1220947
By Copyright © 2007 David Monniaux (Copyright © 2007 David Monniaux) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.0 fr], via Wikimedia Commons

The new Aster 30 Block 1 missile will in future be able to intercept ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000 km. This is an improvement from the current 600 km limitation of the existing Block 1 configuration.

Eurosam has a road map for an Aster Block 2 that deal with missiles with a range of up to 3,000 km.

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