Paris Air Show 2025: MBDA awarded contract to provide Italian military with VSHORAD solution

MBDA has signed a development contract to equip the Italian armed forces with a very-short-range air defence (VSHORAD) system.

The contract was announced on 16 June 2025, on the first day of the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, where MBDA also unveiled that the name of the missile at the core of the system would be ‘Fulgur’.

The system has been developed by MBDA in response to an operational requirement expressed by the Italian military for a VSHORAD system to protect two future air defence capabilities based around MBDA’s Common Anti-air Modular Missile – Extended Range (CAMM-ER): the Italian Army’s Grifo new-generation air defence systems and the Italian Air Force’s Medium Advanced Air Defence Systems (MAADS).

The Fulgur is a man-portable, supersonic, fire-and-forget, all-weather, day and night interceptor that can also be mounted on armoured vehicle turrets or air-launched from a helicopter. It is equipped with a seeker with image processing capabilities and counters a threat set that includes small drones, helicopters and fighters. Its features and performances are fully compliant with NATO standards.

The Fulgur system will also be integrated into Sky Warden: MBDA’s modular, scalable and evolvable counter-unmanned aerial vehicle (C-UAV) system.

“We are really proud to support the Italian Army and offer to future export customers a very short-range solution that integrates into multi-layered air defence systems,” Lorenzo Mariani, MBDA’s executive group director for sales and business development, was quoted as saying in an MBDA press release. “Fulgur completes MBDA’s offer in the VSHORAD segment and it will give Europe a totally autonomous and technologically sovereign very-short-range capability, able to evolve into an air-to-air system operational on a rotary-wing [aircraft], thanks to its flexibility and ease of integration.”

MBDA intends to make the first Fulgur system deliveries in early 2028.