L3Harris Issues Purchase Order to Poland's WZE for Patriot PAC-3 Attitude Control Motor Production
Zielonka, 26 May 2026
Key points
- L3Harris Technologies issued a purchase order to Wojskowe Zakłady Elektroniczne (WZE), the Polish state-owned defence firm, on 26 May for serial production of Patriot PAC-3 Attitude Control Motors
- WZE has cleared Production Readiness, Manufacturing Readiness and Production Line Verification reviews; low-rate initial production opens at a new Zielonka facility following US-based training at L3Harris Camden, Arkansas
- Each PAC-3 interceptor contains 180 ACMs; partnership stands up in-country missile component production under the Polish WISLA air-defence programme alongside Lockheed Martin
L3Harris Technologies on 26 May issued a purchase order to Poland's state-owned Wojskowe Zakłady Elektroniczne for serial production of Patriot PAC-3 Attitude Control Motors, opening low-rate initial production at a new Zielonka facility and standing up the first European serial source for the egg-sized solid rocket motors that refine the interceptor's terminal-phase trajectory.
Each PAC-3 interceptor contains 180 Attitude Control Motors, which fire during the missile's terminal phase to refine course and ensure body-to-body hit-to-kill impact. WZE has completed a Production Readiness Review, a Manufacturing Readiness Review and a Production Line Verification, the three procedural gates that release a certified supplier into serial output. The Zielonka facility was equipped over the preceding period, with WZE personnel trained at L3Harris's Camden, Arkansas solid rocket motor production campus.
The partnership runs under the Polish WISLA air-defence offset programme, with Lockheed Martin as the prime PAC-3 integrator and L3Harris as the propulsion supplier of record. The structure stands up in-country missile component production inside an EU/NATO state for the first time and is positioned for low-rate initial production output in the near term, scaling against the Patriot interceptor demand profile that Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden are all expanding.
The purchase order lands one day before Volodymyr Zelensky's letter to Donald Trump named the PAC-3 interceptor as the binding constraint on Ukrainian air defence and proposed joint European production under US technology ownership. The L3Harris–WZE order is the first segment of exactly that architecture — already moving, already certified — and the question Ankara in July will adjudicate is whether the model scales from attitude-control motor production to interceptor-level assembly. The procedural template is in place; the policy decision is not — a question first framed in Signal No. 69.
Sources: L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Wojskowe Zakłady Elektroniczne, Polish Ministry of National Defence.
First reported in Signal No. 69, 27 May 2026.