Lockheed's PAC-3 ACE and MBDA's Counter Mass Interceptor Launch at Farnborough, Both Promised for 2028
Farnborough, 20 July 2026
Key points
- Lockheed Martin introduced the PAC-3 ACE — Adapted Capability Effector — claiming less than half the unit cost of the PAC-3 MSE; COO Frank St John told the Financial Times the target is USD 1.5–2 million a round at roughly two-thirds the MSE's coverage, against an MSE price near USD 4 million, with first flight in about 18 months
- MBDA unveiled the Counter Mass Interceptor (CMI) — a 53 kg, 2.3-metre munition with an infrared seeker and a range beyond 6 km, built against waves of low-cost drones — first version promised "as early as 2028," British-led, with a longer-range all-weather French-led interceptor to follow
- Production geography is the open variable in both pitches: Lockheed is in early talks with the US government on international production, first option a European supply chain — St John's stated intention is "an entire European-sourced missile" — while MBDA states that "today in Europe, there is no sovereign system capable of addressing saturation"
- Neither product named a customer, a contract or a funding line
Two of the Western alliance's largest missile houses opened the Farnborough Airshow with the same product: an interceptor cheap enough to fire at mass. Lockheed Martin's PAC-3 ACE and MBDA's Counter Mass Interceptor are both promised for 2028 — and both pitches turn on where the production line should sit.
The PAC-3 ACE trades performance for rate: Lockheed's release claims less than half the MSE's unit cost, achieved by throttling back the solid rocket motor and seeker, firing from existing Patriot fire control and Northrop Grumman's IBCS. The sharper figures are St John's, to the FT: USD 1.5–2 million a round at about two-thirds of the MSE's coverage — against roughly USD 4 million for an MSE, per US Army budget documents. First flight is due in about 18 months, with executives placing initial production in 2028 "or possibly even sooner."
MBDA's CMI attacks the cheaper half of the saturation problem — Class 1–3 drones in waves, with helicopters and cruise missiles in the envelope — in the language of the car industry: "We are moving closer to an automotive-industry model. The goal is to be able to manufacture at scale." A first version is promised as early as 2028, developed by MBDA's British teams, with a French-led longer-range, all-weather successor to follow.
What moved is geography, not hardware. Ten days before Farnborough, cheap-mass interception was national staff work; now two competing products are in public development, and each vendor is selling the line's location as hard as the round. But the products are not quite the same — ACE answers ballistic mass, the CMI drone mass — and a line sited in Europe under US export control would still leave the sovereignty gap MBDA is pricing. As Großwald Signal No. 105 put it on launch day: what exists today is a stated willingness to site the line in Europe; what does not yet exist is a round on a rail.
Related · The cut-price interceptor race
The US Army books USD 4.76 billion of PAC-3 MSE, 94 per cent for export (8 April 2026)
Fire Point flight-tests the FP-7.X, a USD 700,000 Patriot alternative (9 June 2026)
The UK places its first LEAP low-cost interceptor contracts (13 July 2026)