MBDA team picked for France's Larinae loitering munition project

France's Larinae project seeks to rapidly develop a loitering munition capable of striking a hardened target at a range of 50km.

Under Larinae, a team consisting of Nexter, EOS Technologie and TRAAK has also been awarded a contract to develop an armour-piercing loitering munition.

According to the European missile maker, MBDA's concept 'MUTANT' is based on a 'Minimum Viable Product' approach and focused on user requirements.

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The new munition benefits from MBDA technologies, including the Akeron family, to ensure performance in neutralising armoured and mobile targets.

MUTANT also utilises advances in civil and military UAVs to offer 'a munition with the best cost/performance ratio'.

MBDA called MUTANT 'a natural complement' to Akeron MP and LP.

Demonstrations under the Larinae effort are scheduled to take place next year.

MBDA said these demos would benefit from self-financed work carried out by the company since 2022, which has enabled the first MUTANT MTO flights with SME partner Delair.

French Ministry of Armed Forces spokesperson Hervé Grandjean stated in a press conference in May 2022 that the DGA and AID were seeking to acquire loitering munitions under two programmes, Colibri and Larinae.

MBDA is also in the running for the Colibri effort – which seeks a low-cost loitering munition with a much shorter range of 5km.

The MBDA-Novadem Colibri proposal is based on a rotary-wing drone more suited to urban environments.