NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) have opened an innovation challenge seeking technologies that can persistently deny an adversary the use of its airfields, with prize funding of up to €250,000.
Submissions for the Persistent Airfield Denial challenge, formally designated Innovation Challenge 2026-2, close on July 20, 2026.
What the challenge is seeking
The competition calls for solutions that enable autonomous or operator-directed engagement of aircraft, runways, fuel and ammunition storage, and ground support infrastructure.
According to the request for innovative participation issued by NATO’s Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, the challenge is technology-agnostic and open to uncrewed aerial systems of any range class, autonomous or semi-autonomous munitions and loitering systems, swarming and mass-effect approaches, and hybrid designs.
Mandatory parameters narrow the field considerably. Submitted systems must have a range above 150 kilometers (93 miles), reach a technology readiness level above 5 [meaning it was already validated in the relevant environment – ed. note], and operate in GPS-denied and electronic-warfare-contested environments across all weather conditions and seasons. Fixed or static ground-based systems without an autonomous engagement capability fall outside the scope.
Drawn from Ukraine’s war against Russia
The challenge documents tie the requirement directly to Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine.
Russian tactical aviation operating from rear-area airfields beyond the reach of conventional Ukrainian strike assets continues to launch guided aerial bombs, cruise missiles, and stand-off munitions, with each sortie originating from an airfield.
NATO notes that existing options, including manned strike aviation, long-range rocket and ballistic fires, and single-use loitering munitions, have shown limited effectiveness against defended airfield targets. The stated logic is that point-defense and the interception of individual weapons must be complemented by “persistent denial at source.”
Ukraine has pursued that approach at scale, most visibly with its June 2025 Operation Spiderweb, which used pre-positioned drones to strike strategic bombers at airfields deep inside Russia.
Cratering enemy runways is a decades-old mission, pursued with low-level dispensers such as Britain’s JP233 and the rocket-boosted Durandal bomb before standoff weapons took over in the 1990s.
France’s MBDA Apache, an air-launched cruise missile that entered service in the early 2000s, was built specifically for it, scattering ten KRISS submunitions to crater a runway and using delayed fuzing to slow repairs. Even then, closing a single runway typically demanded several missiles, and the effect was temporary, since craters can be patched within hours.
None of those weapons remains in frontline NATO service. Britain withdrew the JP233 in 1998, and the Apache’s airframe was redirected into the SCALP EG/Storm Shadow, which swapped the submunitions for a single penetrating warhead aimed at hardened shelters, bunkers, and ammunition stores rather than the runway.
What NATO air forces field today for airfield attack are multipurpose standoff cruise missiles of that kind: the Storm Shadow and SCALP, Germany’s Taurus KEPD 350, and the US-made JASSM and JASSM-ER flown by Finland and Poland, among others. Each hits a single aim point, costs more than a million euros, and strikes once. None holds an airfield closed over time, which is the gap the RFIP describes when it rules out single-use solutions.
Prize structure and timeline
The funding, up to €250,000, will be split equally among as many as three winners, with 10% paid on selection and the remaining 90% conditional on a later demonstration of the winning solution.
Eligibility is limited to organizations headquartered in a NATO member nation or Ukraine. NATO ACT will select up to 10 finalists, to be announced on August 11, 2026, ahead of an in-person pitch day projected for September 3, 2026, in Warsaw, Poland.
The format follows an earlier NATO ACT and JATEC effort in 2025 that fast-tracked three European companies to develop a layered defense against Russian glide bombs.
