MBDA and Safran Electronics & Defense completed the first demonstration firing of the Thundart ground-to-ground rocket system on April 14, the two companies announced on April 29, 2026 — a milestone that arrives weeks before the French defense procurement agency is expected to select a winner in the competition to replace the French Army’s long-range rocket artillery fleet.
The firing took place at the DGA Essais Missiles test site on Île du Levant, off the coast of the Var department in southern France. MBDA said performance exceeded expectations and that the test validated both the system’s design choices and its propulsion architecture. The entire development sequence, from blank-sheet concept to demonstration firing, took 18 months.
“Thundart is the first and only sovereign deep-strike system in Europe to have completed a demonstration firing,” said Hugo Coqueret, MBDA’s head of land combat, speaking at a press conference on April 29. He described the result as “a key milestone” for the program.
The Thundart propulsion system was developed by Roxel, a wholly owned subsidiary of MBDA, in just over a year. The guidance kit is derived from Safran’s AASM (Armement Air-Sol Modulaire) family of precision munitions, and the test confirmed the rocket’s performance in electronic warfare-dense environments.
Industrial scale-up and joint venture
MBDA and Safran said the program involves more than 100 personnel and relies entirely on a French subcontracting chain, spanning five regions. Both companies cited expanded production capacity as a signal of industrial readiness: MBDA is planning €2 billion in investment in France between 2026 and 2030 and a 40% increase in production in 2026 compared with 2025, while Safran quadrupled AASM output at its Montluçon site between 2022 and 2025.
The two companies also said they are examining the creation of a 50/50 joint venture to continue Thundart’s development, and did not rule out future evolutions toward longer-range land strike applications.
The system is designed to be fully ITAR-free, with production based in France, enabling unrestricted export. Operational capability is targeted before 2030.
Replacing France’s aging LRU fleet
Thundart was first unveiled at Eurosatory 2024 and is being developed under the FLP-T (Frappe Longue Portée – Terrestre) program, a DGA initiative launched in 2023 to field a sovereign replacement for the nine Lance-Roquettes Unitaires (LRU) currently in French Army service. Those systems, based on the US M270 platform, have a maximum range of 70 kilometers and are approaching obsolescence. Thundart targets a range of 150 kilometers in its initial increment, with longer-range evolutions under study.
The FLP-T is structured as a competitive parallel development. ArianeGroup and Thales are developing the competing FLP-T 150 system, unveiled in March 2026. Both teams were awarded innovation partnership contracts by the DGA, with a winner expected to be selected in 2026.
