France's MBDA teams with United Arab Emirates to locally produce loitering munitions.

The Tawazun Council and MBDA used Dubai Airshow 2025 to announce MBDA UAE, local production of a Raijin-derived loitering munition, and a new Emirati thermal battery plant in Tawazun Industrial Park. The moves deepen the UAE’s missile ecosystem, shifting it from customer to co-producer and strengthening long-term sovereignty over precision weapons and critical components.

At Dubai Airshow 2025, the Tawazun Council for Defence Enablement and MBDA recast their partnership as a full missile ecosystem project rather than a single product reveal. Building on the 2023 Missile Engineering Centre in Abu Dhabi, the two sides announced the creation of MBDA UAE, a locally anchored entity that will steer joint developments, while committing to develop and manufacture in-country a loitering munition based on France’s R2-120 Raijin airframe already shown at IDEX and SOFINS. In parallel, Tawazun confirmed plans for an Emirati thermal battery plant inside Tawazun Industrial Park, a critical step to securing an indigenous supply of guidance and power units for missiles and smart weapons.
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Diamond-Shaped loitering munition on the MBDA stand at IDEX 2025 in Abu Dhabi, derived from the Fly-R R2-120 Raijin and now selected for local development and production under the Tawazun–MBDA cooperation in the UAE. (Picture source: Army Recognition)

For the United Arab Emirates, these announcements fit into the strategy built around the Tawazun Economic Programme (TEP), used as a lever to structure a national defence industrial base. Offset requirements imposed on foreign prime contractors no longer stop at training centres or final assembly work, but are now expected to generate research, engineering, and production capabilities with higher added value in-country. MBDA has already moved in this direction with the opening in 2023 of the Missile Engineering Center in Abu Dhabi, the group’s first missile engineering centre outside Europe, staffed by mixed MBDA and Tawazun Technology Innovation teams working on the SmartGlider glide munition family and other future effectors.

The creation of MBDA UAE, a company wholly owned by the European group, takes this logic a step further by providing a legal and industrial vehicle dedicated to cooperation with Tawazun. The new entity is intended to become a focal point for the design, production, and support of missiles for the Emirati armed forces, with the long-term ability to manage the full life cycle of part of the MBDA weapons portfolio. Statements issued on the sidelines of the show underline its role as a long-term partner, both for the domestic market and for exports from the UAE, relying on the network of local subcontractors that Tawazun has been assembling for several years in its industrial parks.

Within this framework, the Diamond-Shaped loitering munition is no longer just a demonstrator shown at IDEX or SOFINS, but becomes the first prominent missile co-development programme conducted in the country. Based on the remotely piloted aircraft R2-120 Raijin from Fly-R, this munition uses a folding rhomboidal wing that enables launch from a compact tube, with a wingspan of about 1.2 m once deployed. Public data indicate a maximum take-off weight of around 5 to 6 kg, a 1.5 kg military payload, a range of roughly 50 km, and an endurance of about 45 minutes, powered by an electric motor. The system is designed for very flexible flight profiles, with cruise speeds around 110 km/h and a terminal phase that can reach about 270 km/h in a diving attack.

The remotely piloted aircraft R2-120 Raijin is fitted with a stabilised day/night optronic turret combining electro-optical and infrared sensors, and with a bidirectional data link that continuously transmits video to the ground station, while allowing the operator to adjust the flight plan through high-level commands. The rhomboidal structure, with no vertical tail, reduces span, drag, and weight while maintaining lift across a wide speed envelope. Launch takes place directly from the transport container, which serves as a reusable tube, with the wings deploying automatically at exit. This architecture limits logistical burden, allows employment from a vehicle, an urban strongpoint or a vessel, and opens the way to swarm-type engagements, mentioned in Fly-R’s initial communications.

The third pillar announced at Dubai Airshow concerns the establishment of Emirati Thermal Batteries, an industrial subsidiary of the French group ASB, inside Tawazun Industrial Park. ASB is one of the main global suppliers of thermal batteries, with an annual capacity exceeding 120,000 units and a product line used on most major European missile and space launcher programmes. This type of battery, based on a solid electrolyte activated by heat, remains fully inert in storage, withstands extreme environments, and, once activated, delivers very high power for several tens of seconds to a few minutes. Industry sources point out that these batteries, used as reserve power sources, have become the electrical core of many guided munitions, supplying power to processors, actuator,s and seekers, with storage lives that can exceed twenty years.

Localising this thermal battery capability through Emirati Thermal Batteries (ETB) therefore, has a clear strategic dimension. Rather than importing a critical component subject to export control constraints, the UAE chooses to industrialise it domestically, under licence and with support from a supplier already working with the main European prime contractors.

Over time, batteries produced at Tawazun will be able to equip Diamond-Shaped loitering munitions developed with MBDA, future missiles coming out of the Missile Engineering Center, and other regional programmes, securing the supply chain from key component to finished system. The connection between MBDA UAE, the missile engineering centre, the Fly-R munition, and the ETB plant outlines a consistent structure that enables the Emirati defence industrial and technological base to position itself on several high-value segments of the missile chain.

Shifting the centre of gravity of this programme towards Abu Dhabi reflects a broader movement: Gulf states are no longer content with acquiring precision-strike capabilities; they seek to control the critical building blocks that make them up, from loitering munitions to on-board power sources. By agreeing to carry out in the United Arab Emirates the development, industrialisation, and support of systems such as SmartGlider and Diamond-Shaped, MBDA places its partnership in a shared sovereignty perspective, in which the European and Emirati defence industrial and technological bases become interdependent.

For the industry, the benefit lies in access to funding, production volumes, and an operational environment directly exposed to missile and drone threats. For the regional balance and arms control regimes, the effect is a gradual spread of complete missile ecosystems to states that did not previously possess them, with lasting consequences for security in the Middle East and for emerging debates on the regulation of precision-strike systems and integrated kill chains.