During the recently concluded Eurosatory 2026 international defense industry trade show held in Paris-Nord Villepinte near Paris, French Minister of Armed Forces and Veterans Catherine Vautrin announced that the winner of the FLP-T (Feux Longue Portée-Terre) program for new multiple rocket launchers is the consortium of European MBDA with French companies Safran Electronics & Defense and Roxel, which offered the Thundart system.
Photos: Safran
„We are incredibly proud of this selection and the recognition of the work of our respective teams with Safran Electronics & Defense. THUNDART represents far more than a new strike capability: it is a sovereign, robust, and adaptable response to the operational challenges of the French Army. Thanks to the complementary nature of our industrial expertise, we are offering the French armed forces a strategic capacity designed to last, and capable of adapting to future conflicts,” said Stéphane Reb, EVP Programmes and Managing Director of MBDA France.
„This selection is a great source of pride for our teams, and we thank the DGA for the trust they have placed in us. It rewards several years of innovation, commitment, and collective work alongside MBDA. With THUNDART, we provide the French Army with a new-generation sovereign capability, able to operate in the most contested environments. This capability also meets the needs expressed by several France’s allied countries, with the potential to be offered for export,” added Alexandre Ziegler, Director of the Defense Global Business Unit of Safran Electronics & Defense.
The competing bids from the consortium of French group Thales and Soframe (along with their recently established cooperation with South Korean Hanwha Aerospace) with the X-Fire launcher on a Mercedes-Benz Zetros 8×8 chassis, and French company ETI Turgis & Gaillard with the Foudre launcher on a Renault Kerax 6×6 chassis, were thus rejected. In the French Army (Armée de terre), the new system will replace the heavy tracked LRU (Lance-Roquettes Unitaire) launchers – the M270A1 MLRS.
The Thundart launcher was first presented on October 23, 2025. At that time, however, it featured a heavy wheeled chassis with an armored cab visually similar to the LRU. At Eurosatory 2026, a lighter Scania 8×8 truck chassis was presented, with an Essonne Sécurité armored cab developed in cooperation with CMAR and Scania France. The launcher, with two launch containers each holding four rockets, has at its disposal a rotating crane for ammunition reloading from an accompanying transport vehicle. The launcher is intended to be compatible with other chassis, with export in mind.
The General Directorate for Armaments (Direction générale de l’Armement, DGA) of the French Ministry of Armed Forces and Veterans launched the FLP-T program in 2023 with an initial budget of 600 million EUR. The Armée de terre currently operates 9 LRU launchers, as two were transferred to Ukraine (earlier reports had mentioned 13, while France originally operated 57 LRU). According to current plans, the new system is to be procured by 2030, though it is no secret that the retirement of the LRU will begin as early as late 2027. MBDA and Safran were therefore planning the first live-fire trials of the Thundart prototype as early as mid-2026.
As MBDA emphasizes, Thundart is a maturity-based solution – a next-generation artillery system built primarily around a new surface-to-surface missile with a range of 150 km, first presented at the Paris Eurosatory trade show in 2024 (for comparison, the LRU can engage targets at ranges of up to 70 km).
MBDA, Europe’s leading missile systems designer and integrator, possesses recognized expertise in land forces systems for deep strike, and the capacity for mass production of ammunition of this class. Safran Electronics & Defense, meanwhile, brings solid experience through the development of the AASM Hammer family of modular guided bombs, allowing it to offer a very similar set of guidance systems for Thundart system ammunition.
Both the French Joint Chiefs of Staff (État-major des armées) and MBDA with Safran have drawn lessons from the war in Ukraine, where rocket artillery was used on a massive scale (in the current phase of the war, unmanned systems have begun to dominate – ed.). The two companies have been cooperating since 2024.
MBDA and Safran first presented Thundart (at the time the name referred to the rocket missile) in June 2024 at Eurosatory under the banner of Sovereignty. It was emphasized that the weapon system is 100% French and is not subject to international ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) export regulations, with the companies retaining full control over future development and production, which will be located in France.
Specific locations have already been selected:
- Fougères (in the Brittany region, in the Ille-et-Vilaine department), Éragny (in the Île-de-France region, in the Val-d’Oise department), and Montluçon (in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, in the Allier department) for Safran Electronics & Defense;
- Bourges (in the Centre-Val de Loire region, in the Cher department), Saint-Médard-en-Jalles (in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, in the Gironde department), Selles-Saint-Denis (in the Centre-Val de Loire region, in the Loir-et-Cher department), and Le Plessis-Robinson (in the Île-de-France region, in the Hauts-de-Seine department) for MBDA.
The launcher is compatible with the new ATLAS (L’automatisation des tirs et liaisons de l’artillerie sol/sol) artillery battle management system, the successor to the ATILA system.
It is worth adding that MBDA is working on the LCM (Land Cruise Missile), a land-based version of the NCM offered under the European ELSA (European Long-Range Strike Approach) program, in which Poland is also participating.
𝐌𝐁𝐃𝐀 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐓, 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞’𝐬 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲.
Read the press release➡️https://t.co/io5tGDfngY pic.twitter.com/IVuyh6BFg8— Safran (@SAFRAN) June 16, 2026
🎥 #THUNDART entre en scène
Développé avec @SAFRAN, le système allie souveraineté, performance et production à grande échelle pour répondre aux enjeux des forces armées.
➡️ Cap vers son déploiement pic.twitter.com/JpU0Hfujd9— MBDA France (@MBDAFrance) April 7, 2026