The U.K. arms of Belgian-based company Rhea and American firm Lockheed Martin won separate contracts, cumulatively worth £4 million (U.S. $5 million).

The deals were announced Feb. 14, although both contractors have worked on their potential offerings since mid-2023, when they were selected from six firms initially tasked to undertake work on what is known as Project Beroe.

The amount of money involved may be small, but the outcome of the research and development work by the two companies could be key, according to Commodore David Moody, the head of capability at UK Space Command.

“This is a pivotal moment for UK Defence and the UK Space Sector as we develop software and partnerships that will determine the future of how we manage our activities in space,” Moody said in a statement released at the time of the announcement. “This project will enable us to define and understand how we will control and optimise the use of our satellites in a safe and sustainable way and is an important part of UK MOD’s future satellite aspirations.”

The 20-month-long contracts are scheduled to conclude in March 2025. There is no public timeline regarding the possible acquisition or future development phases of the software.

Existing British satellite control is focused around the Skynet 5 communications spacecraft network but Project Beroe is expected to enable satellite taskings from a much wider group of government entities and satellite types, individually or in concert.

Project Beroe is not directly related to Skynet and will support future non-Skynet satellite constellations like the low-Earth orbit ISTARI and Minerva programs.

Together, ISTARI and Minerva are to form the building blocks of a low-Earth orbit ISR capability for the British military.

ISTARI is a 10-year, £968 million program planned to deliver a multi-satellite system supporting surveillance and intelligence gathering for military operations.

Minerva is a £127 million project to develop four concept demonstrator satellites: Titania, Tyche, Oberon and Juno.

Tyche, which is the first of the four to launch, is scheduled to enter orbit this year. The Minerva group is meant to demonstrate the ability to autonomously collect, process and disseminate data from British and allied space assets, and this will inform how the ISTARI project moves forward.

Both programs are part of a planned £6.4 billion fund spread out over 10 years, as announced by the MoD when it rolled out its space defense strategy in 2022.

At a cost of about £5 billion, the lion’s share of that spending will go toward the procurement of a new generation of satellites and ground facilities under the Skynet 6 program.

Airbus is already building the first of those satellites, known as Skynet 6A, and a further competition is underway to provide a new generation of narrowband and wideband satellites under the Skynet 6 banner.

Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ukraine signed a letter of intent alongside Latvia to join the drone coalition Feb 14.

The number of countries swelled further on Feb. 15 when the U.K. announced it was also joining the grouping as co-leader with Latvia.

“Along with the existing countries that have already joined the drone coalition, the U.K. will make a significant contribution by supporting Ukraine both with technology and helping to develop skills,” said Latvian defense minister Andris Sprūds.

The drone coalition intends to deliver one million drones to Ukraine, said the Latvian MoD in a statement. No timeline for the drone deliveries was given by officials in Riga.

The Latvian MoD said it intends to spend at least €10 million ($11 million) this year on drones for Ukraine.

“By signing the letter of intent, countries have agreed to commit resources for manufacturing of drones and will deliver these drones and spare parts to Ukraine, where they will be tested,” said the Latvian MoD.

The British will be the lead nation for scaling up and streamlining the West’s provision of the miniature drones to Ukraine.

A spokesperson for the British MoD declined to give any details beyond saying a drone procurement process will be announced in due course.

As for Latvia’s role, the country is expected to host a drone school for Ukrainian operators and establish a test range to check the performance of drones, the British spokesperson said.

British Defence Secretary Gregg Shapps said the U.K. was already Kyiv’s largest drone supplier and had earmarked £200 million ($252 million) this year to manufacturing drones of various types destined for the battlefield.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced in January that aside from small, low-cost, uncrewed air vehicles the Ministry of Defence would be buying long-range strike, sea drones and other types under the pledge.

The announcement on the drone coalition by the two defense ministers was made on the sidelines of a NATO ministerial meeting taking place in Brussels.

Small drones have proven highly effective on the battlefield since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, providing operators with situational awareness to target enemy positions, armored vehicles, and ships with explosive ordnance. First-person-view drones are typically piloted with the help of goggles, allowing operators to see a live video feed from the drone’s camera.

The British MoD said it would be running an industry competition to produce large numbers of the drones at an affordable price.

The Royal United Services Institute think tank in London estimated last year that Ukraine was losing 10,000 unmanned aerial vehicles a month.

The £1.8 billion (U.S. $2.3 billion) contract with the French-based company’s U.K. arm got underway Jan. 1 but was only revealed Feb. 2 during a visit by British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps to the Devonport naval base in southwest England.

The support program will see Thales use data technology, including AI and virtual reality, to provide more proactive and predictive maintenance, replacing a more traditional engineering repair service the company previously ran with the Royal Navy.

Known as the Maritime Sensor Enhancement Team, the effort will see Thales support sonar systems, periscopes, masts and electronic warfare equipment deployed on existing and under-construction vessels across the surface and submarine fleets. In almost all cases, Thales is the original supplier of the equipment.

The contract is part of a wider drive by the Royal Navy to maximize the availability of its fleet during a time of increasing maritime demand in places like the Red Sea.

Thales said the new predictive model is more advantageous than the old approach of reacting when problems emerge.

“Over the life of the contract, it will deliver an average reduction in Turn Around Times of 100 days per repair, spares lead times will be reduced by an average of 44 days and reliability improved by 10%.,” Thales said in a statement.

Alex Cresswell, CEO of Thales UK, said the contract “will help keep more Royal Navy ships at sea for longer, by harnessing the latest developments in artificial intelligence, data analysis and improved dockland facilities.

The contract also involves improvements to waterfront facilities at major naval bases in Devonport and Portsmouth in England; Faslane in Scotland; and in Bahrain where the Royal Navy has a permanent base.

The Defence Ministry announced in November efforts to improve infrastructure at Devonport with £750 million in funding. That district is, among other things, home to Britain’s only nuclear submarine repair facility.

“Our acquisition of Malloy Aeronautics is part of our ongoing strategy to develop and invest in breakthrough technologies which augment our existing capabilities ,” Simon Barnes, group managing director of BAE’s air sector business, said in the news release.

The purchase, for which no price was given, follows a two-year partnership between the companies to develop the all-electric quadcopter T-650, with a maximum payload of 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and a top range of 30 kilometers (19 miles). The British government previously supplied the Ukrainian military with smaller versions of the quadcopter for logistics.

Other customers include the U.K. and U.S. militaries. Malloy’s American partner Survice Engineering is under contract to supply the U.S. Marine Corps with the Malloy-made TRV-150C drone for tactical resupply.

The T-650 is in the development phase and mainly targeted at providing unmanned logistics capabilities. But last year, the system showed it has the potential to become a weapons platform when a slightly smaller variant — a technology demonstrator known as the T-600 — carried and released an inert 200-kilogram Sting Ray torpedo during a NATO exercise.

It also has the potential to serve as a flying ambulance. Last year, BAE showed a concept casualty evacuation pod for the T-650 at the DSEI defense show in London.

BAE said its Malloy operation will remain in Berkshire, near London, and become an arm of its FalconWorks air sector research and development operation. Malloy employs about 80 people.

As part of BAE’s strategy to break into the unmanned sector, the company in 2021 acquired Prismatic, a British developer of solar-powered, high-altitude, long-endurance drones. And last year, BAE announced it was considering a partnership with U.K. defense contractor QinetiQ to collaborate on aerial drones and mission management systems. Those talks are still underway, according to a BAE official.

The trial with the direct-energy weapon is considered a significant milestone toward the deployment of the system, possibly within five years.

Efforts to quickly field such weapons are partly driven by conflicts in Ukraine and near the Red Sea, where expensive air defense missiles are used against cheap but effective drones. The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 (U.S. $13) per shot, the ministry noted.

DragonFire is a £30 million technology demonstrator program revealed by the ministry’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in 2017.

The industry team — led by missile-maker MBDA, with partners Leonardo UK and QinetiQ — is the key element in a £100 million joint investment with the ministry to develop directed-energy weapons across several programs, including radio-frequency direct-energy weapons.

The MoD said the DragonFire test results are a major step forward in bringing the laser technology into service. The latest milestone follows a series of trials announced by the ministry late last year, including the first static high-power laser firing of a U.K.-made capability as well as the demonstration of the DragonFire system’s ability to track moving air and sea targets with high accuracy.

Shimon Fhina, who directs the ministy’s strategic programs, said the recent trials proved the technology can track and engage high-end targets at range. The government was looking to “accelerate the next phase of the program,” he explained.

A spokesperson with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory said the “timing of any deployment into U.K. service depends on a number of factors, but could be within the next 5 to 10 years.”

The MoD had already announced its intent to progress directed-energy weapons into a so-called transition phase. This is meant to prepare the military for the eventual fielding of directed-energy weapons by communicating safety measures, implementing training, creating operational concepts and doctrine, and so on, the spokesperson explained.

Doug Barrie, an air warfare analyst at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said the U.K.’s progress on laser technology is going well.

“There is a lot of work going on in countries like the U.S., Russia and China — most of it classified. But the U.K. has a long history in laser and radio-frequency work, and while we can only dream about the funding levels countries like the U.S. obtain, we [managed to squeeze] quite a lot out of our funding. It’s transitioning the technology to the marketplace that is the problem,” he said.

The British Army and the Royal Navy are each interested in using the technology for air defense. Naval News reported last year the MoD was looking at the retrofit of a 150-kilowatt-class laser directed-energy weapon for new Type 26 frigates beginning in the early 2030s.

The ministry declined to provide Defense news with technical details of the DragonFire, including its range and power levels. Media reports previously put the power level around 50 kilowatts.

“The range of DragonFire is classified, but it is a line-of-sight weapon and can engage with any visible target,” the ministry said.

The latest trial took place at a test range in Hebrides, Scotland. The DragonFire shot down a drone, according to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, but no further details about the target were available, including range, altitude and speed.

“This type of cutting-edge weaponry has the potential to revolutionise the battlespace by reducing the reliance on expensive ammunition, while also lowering the risk of collateral damage,” Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said in the ministry’s news release. “Investments with industry partners in advanced technologies like DragonFire are crucial in a highly contested world.”

WASHINGTON, LONDON and PARIS — Several nations have announced their contributions to Operation Prosperity Guardian, a new multinational security initiative in the Middle East to help protect merchant ships in the Red Sea area from drones and missiles.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin formally announced the effort Dec. 18, after previously hinting that collective action is required to protect civilian ships in the region.

To date, Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched at least 100 attacks with one-way drones and ballistic missiles, targeting 10 merchant vessels that represent more than 35 different nations, according to a readout of a virtual meeting between security group participants.

“Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity,” Austin said Dec. 18.

He noted this effort will fall under the purview of the Combined Maritime Forces — a multinational maritime partnership based in Bahrain — and its Task Force 153. The CMF is made up of 39 nations, and its various task forces help secure the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Some task forces also focus on countering piracy across the region as well as and training and partner-building activities.

About 20,000 commercial vessels transit the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden every year, according to the French Navy. Task Force 153 specifically covers the Red Sea and was established in 2022 to address human trafficking and smuggling of both legal materials like coal and illegal weapons and drugs, Defense News previously reported.

The readout of Austin’s meeting noted that task force “could be leveraged to deter attacks under the CMF,” but the Defense Department declined to provide additional information.

Here are some details about forces participating in Operation Prosperity Guardian.

Britain

Britain has committed a Type 45 destroyer equipped with air defense weapons to the international task force.

The Defence Ministry announced Dec. 19 the destroyer HMS Diamond will lead the Royal Navy’s contribution to Operation Prosperity Guardian.

HMS Diamond has been in the region for a little more than two weeks and moved to the Red Sea on Saturday. It was almost immediately called into action to shoot down a suspected Houthi drone aimed at a commercial ship in the area. This was first time the Royal Navy shot down an aerial target since the Gulf War in 1991.

“This is an international problem that requires an international solution. That is why HMS Diamond has joined Operation Prosperity Guardian,” Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said while announcing the work with the security group.

British forces have been on hand with a small fleet of ships in the region. For example, the military operates a flotilla out of Bahrain that includes the frigate HMS Lancaster, three mine-hunting vessels and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship.

Italy

Italy will do its part to counter “destabilizing terrorist activity” by sending the multimission frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, the country’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.

Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto and Austin discussed maritime security in a video call Tuesday, including options for securing shipping routes to avoid economic repercussions and “dangerous impacts” on commodity prices.

“It’s necessary to increase the presence in the area in order to create the conditions for stabilization, to avoid environmental disasters and also to avoid a resurgence of the inflationary push,” Crosetto said in the statement.

France

The French multimission frigate Languedoc has been patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the southern area of the Red Sea since Dec. 8 to secure freedom of navigation, the French Navy said in a Dec. 15 statement.

The Languedoc shot down two drones coming from the direction of Yemen that appeared hostile on the second day of its patrol duty. The frigate destroyed a drone threatening the Norwegian oil tanker Strinda on Dec. 11, before moving in to protect the stricken tanker and prevent a hijacking, according to the Navy. A fire aboard the Strinda was brought under control without injuries.

Norway

Norway will dispatch as many as 10 staff officers to the Combined Maritime Forces, the Norwegian Defence Ministry said.

Marita Isaksen Wangberg, a ministry spokesperson, told Defense News the country isn’t sending any vessels.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands plans to contribute two staff officers to the operation. The country doesn’t have any vessels in the area at this time, and the contribution of ships is under review, Navy spokesperson Alex Kranenburg told Defense News.

Spain

Spain has not made a decision regarding its participation in Operation Prosperity Guardian, the Defence Ministry’s spokesperson, Nuria Fernández de la Fuente, told Defense News. Any participation by Spain, the representative added, would not be unilateral but within the framework of NATO or the European Union.

Procurement officials for Skynet 6 released an invitation earlier this month to Airbus Defence and Space, Lockheed Martin and Thales Alenia Space with instructions to respond no later than March 2024, said an industry executive who asked not to be named while discussing internal discussions with the government.

The three companies were announced by the MoD as being shortlisted earlier this year after responding to a pre-qualification questionnaire for that segment of the program, known as Skynet Enduring Capability Wideband Satellite System.

The British are in the midst of a competition to build a network of geostationary-orbit, narrow- and wideband communication satellites to replace existing Skynet 5 capabilities, built and operated by Airbus, as part of a wider £6 billion ($7.6 billion) program.

Submission of the bids for the wideband requirement will trigger a period of negotiations, followed by the MoD launching a second phase of the competition starting December 2024. A winner is expected to be announced the following year.

The government’s new solicitation came just days before a separate competition to build narrowband satellites for Skynet 6 was thrown into disarray when the Financial Times reported that Northrop Grumman was pulling out of the contest, seemingly leaving Thales Alenia Space as the only bidder left in the race.

The withdrawal has raised concerns here over whether the competition should be reset or proceed on a sole-source basis with the Franco-Italian bidder.

Thales Alenia Space declined to comment for this article.

For the moment, defense officials said the narrowband procurement is going ahead. But, according to the industry insider, they were furious about Northrop’s withdrawal announcement, which came as a surprise.

Northrop Grumman told the FT that it had withdrawn from the narrowband competition “after thoroughly reviewing” the government’s invitation to negotiate.

The U.S. space giant was to be the prime bidder in a partnership with Airbus Defence and Space. In return Airbus is taking the lead for the transatlantic bid for the wideband business, with Northrop Grumman as its junior partner.

Northrop Grumman declined to comment on the reasons for its withdrawal. Airbus said it wouldn’t comment on the commercial decisions of other companies.

Airbus and Northrop Grumman announced Oct. 23 that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue the wideband satellite requirement in what the companies termed a “strategic partnership.”

That element of the Skynet tie-up between the two space companies continues.

Airbus is already building a satellite, known as Skynet 6A, to fill a capability gap ahead of the new generation of spacecraft becoming available in 2028.

Skynet 6A is scheduled to launch in 2025.

Known as Project Nyx Alpha, the capability being provided by British space technology company SpaceFlux will enable Space Command and the U.K. Space Agency to accurately monitor the fast growing number of satellites and debris in orbit.

The British plan to have the system in play by spring 2024, reestablishing a former capability that had lapsed.

Spaceflux will build, maintain, and routinely operate the system tasked by UK Space Command and UK Space Agency analysts from the soon to launch U.K. Space Operations Centre at the Royal Air Force base at High Wycombe, southern England, said the MoD in a statement

The centre is planned to coordinate civilian and military space domain awareness capabilities to enable operations and protect U.K. interests like the Skynet satellite communications network from space-related threats and hazards.

Announcing the deal at the U.K. Space conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Air Vice-Marshal Paul Godfrey, the head of the UK Space Command said the new capability was a key part in helping Britain defend its interests in space.

“Space domain awareness underpins our ability to protect and defend U.K. and allied interests in space. The U.K has critical assets in geostationary orbit, and Project Nyx Alpha will help us to monitor them more closely”, he said.

To support military and civil missions in space Godfrey also announced the British have procured space domain awareness data from Spaceflux, as well as Raytheon Systems.

On it’s website Spaceflux says it offers access to the largest optical taskable sensors currently available in the market, with telescopes up to 70-cm in diameter, allowing the detection of the faintest objects from LEO to GEO and Cislunar.

The website says the company is rapidly expanding its network to 10 locations this year and a total of 25 locations by the end of 2024.

Cyprus was chosen as the location for the British telescope due to the fact it provides a better view of the geostationary orbit than sites on the UK mainland said the MoD statement.

The U.K. already have a major military base on the eastern Mediterranean island.

The two-day summit, which begins Nov. 1 at the World War II code breaking center at Bletchley Park, is expected to host U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as tech industry leaders.

Scenarios at sea

The Defence Ministry said Oct. 31 that a beach-landing exercise was held in the English Channel off the coast of Hampshire. The ministry’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, supported by the Royal Navy and Army, led the five-day exercise in September.

It involved about 130 personnel, 13 vessels, multiple UAVs, a light aircraft, and more than 50 cameras and sensors deployed to gather data that future defense-related AI capabilities could use.

Several U.S. government organizations also participated, including the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Munitions Directorate; the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; and the Opto-Knowledge Systems-supported Armaments Center of the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command.

Industry participants included British firms BAE Systems and Chess Dynamics; Italian company Leonardo; American business Lockheed Martin; and French contractor Thales.

The beach landing saw personnel boarding and leaving vehicles in different ways to generate data representative of varying behavioral traits. In one scenario, synchronized landings saw participants act as a military unit, while another involved participants exiting boats in a deliberately chaotic way to provide a wider data sample of human movement, the MoD said in a statement.

“Innovative, data-driven exercises like this demonstrate how AI can enhance our military capabilities, enabling us to respond more efficiently to the threats of today and tomorrow,” according to Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge.

Data captured during the exercise included visual, infrared, sonar and radar information, as well as metadata such as platform and sensor locations, weather, and sea states. That data will now help train AI algorithms to recognize objects, such as other vessels, the ministry explained.

Helicopter maintenance

The MoD also gave an update on the introduction of a new helicopter support software tool that uses AI to improve maintenance and availability.

The software program, known as Motherlode, is capable of analyzing historical data tailored to environmental and aircraft-specific conditions to more accurately predict equipment failures.

Previously lengthy problem-solving tasks now take just seconds, the MoD said in a statement. The full capability will be rolled out by the end of the year across all Royal Navy helicopters, including the Wildcat and Merlin fleets.

“This is just the beginning of the AI journey for the Fleet Air Arm. There are multiple use cases being explored, leveraging AI to enhance our data exploitation capabilities to maximise aircraft availability for frontline operations,” Cmdr. Nicholas Almond, who leads the 1710 Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, said in the statement.

The MoD said it is now exploring the AI technology’s potential use on other defense equipment, such as the Foxhound armored patrol vehicle.

Backed by a barrage of rockets, Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns, killing dozens and abducting others in an unprecedented surprise attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday. In response, the Israeli government declared war on Hamas and vowed to inflict an “unprecedented price.”

Royal Air Force P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, other unspecified surveillance assets, two Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships, three Merlin helicopters and a company of Royal Marines are part of the deployment package meant to support Israel, prevent escalation and aid in humanitarian efforts, the British government said. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is the support arm of the Royal Navy.

Maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft operations will start as early as Oct. 13 to track threats to regional security, such as the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups, the government added.

A Royal Navy task force will also head to the region next week as a contingency measure to support humanitarian efforts, government noted. The task force will include the landing ship dock RFA Lyme Bay the support and hospital vessel RFA Argus.

HMS Duncan, a Type 45 anti-air destroyer, is already in the Mediterranean Sea as part of a NATO force, but its unclear whether the ship will join the Royal Navy task group.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the military deployment represents an unequivocal statement of support for Israel.

“The Royal Navy Task Group, RAF operations and our wider military support will be an undeniable display of the UK’s resolve to ensure Hamas’s terrorist campaign fails, whilst reminding those who seek to inflame tensions that the forces of freedom stand with the Israeli people,” Shapps said in a statement.

The package will add to an already substantial British presence in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which includes two military bases on Cyprus. The island hosts the largest Royal Air Force base outside the U.K. and houses significant signals- and intelligence-gathering assets.

Hamas’ assault last Saturday killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including 247 soldiers. Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry on Oct. 13 said that 1,799 people have been killed in the territory, including more than 580 under the age of 18 and 351 women.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.