The French Air and Space Forces will now benefit from eight SAMP/T NG

As announced on 17 September 2024 during the Conference on European Air and Missile Defense in Rome (Italy) by the French Ministry of Defence, Sébastien Lecornu, French Minister of Armed forces officialised a contract, through OCCAR-EA, to launch the serial production of seven additional SAMP/T NG sections for the French Air and Space Forces.

The SAMP/T NG system is developed through a cooperation between Italy and France. Natively based on the capability to manage the munitions of the Aster family (A30 B1 and A30 B1NT), it will be able to offer a multilayer capability by integration and coordination of SHORAD and V-SHORAD assets.

Each French SAMPT-NG section will be based on the Thales GF300, multifunction rotating active electronically scanned array radar and on the New Generation Engagement Module (ME-NG) produced by Thales.

The ME-NG is the core of the system. It is developed through a cooperation between Thales and MBDA Italy. The ME-NG is based on a common core hardware and software architecture able to integrate specific national requirements and different radars, to coordinate or to integrate various weapon systems based on diverse munitions.

This order is an additional step towards the renewal of the European Medium-Range Air Defence ground capabilities, following the SAMP/T NG development launched by the two Nations in 2021.