MBDA UK, MBDA Italia and Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric Corporation are to work together to support the design of core-platform as part of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).

The companies announced the signing of a collaboration agreement at DSEI 2023.

The three companies will work together to ensure the seamless integration of weapons for the GCAP platform.

Looking to the future, the collaboration will also include working on weapon effects management and related technologies.

It comes as BAE Systems, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Leonardo SpA announced at DSEI 2023 that they will collaborate to deliver a next-generation combat aircraft for the GCAP.

The collaboration agreement will involve the industry partners maturing integration, collaboration and sharing of information towards the next phase of GCAP.

Working collaboratively on major defence programmes

MBDA, a leader in complex weapon systems, has a long history of working collaboratively on major defence programmes.

As part of the UK’s Team Tempest effort at the start of 2018, and expanding in 2019 as Italy joined the growing programme, the company brings decades of experience in developing and integrating weapon systems for various Combat Air platforms.

Mitsubishi Electric played a key role in Japan’s F-2 programme and has been involved in the development of Japan’s F-X next-generation fighter programme.

Now that Japan, the UK and Italy have joined forces to create the Global Combat Air Programme, Mitsubishi Electric is also working with Leonardo and Elt Group on GCAP’s advanced electronics.

This experience and combined expertise will be fundamental in ensuring that the GCAP effects domain works in harmony with the platform’s other domains – mission systems, sensors, power – exploiting the information advantage they will provide and together maximising mission effectiveness.
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