Thales Group has introduced SkyDefender, a multi-layer integrated air and missile defense system designed to counter threats ranging from drones to hypersonic missiles.

The system connects advanced sensors, radars, satellites, and weapons through the SkyView command-and-control system, enabling coordinated defense across land, sea, air, and space. Built with an open architecture and enhanced by AI, SkyDefender can integrate with existing defense networks to provide scalable, global protection. Thales writes:

As air and missile threats are evolving faster than ever, from slow-moving drones to hypersonic missiles, attacks are becoming increasingly complex, saturating and unpredictable.

Thales SkyDefender provides full protection against all types of air threats, from a few kilometres to several thousands of kilometres:

• Short-range: for protection of forces, vital assets and sensitive sites: ForceShield creates a real protection bubble against lower layer and surface threats at very short- and short-range, such as drones.
• Medium-range: for protection at theatre-level defence: SAMP-T NG by eurosam¹ with up to 150 km engagement range, including Thales’ powerful Ground Fire radar with 350 km range and 360°/90° coverage against medium-range defence.
• Long-range: for protection against long-range threats with early-warning capabilities: a unique capacity that empowers armed forces with superior tracking, identifying hard-to-find targets including fighter jets and ballistic missiles bolstering Space Domain Awareness. Thales SMART-L MM and UHF radars, which can detect potential threats at distances of up to 5,000 km, are key differentiators. Thales Alenia Space offers an early warning solution from geostationary orbit thanks to satellites equipped with infrared sensors that can detect a missile threat, and give the accurate location of the launch, even before it enters the areas covered by ground-based radars. Combined with the ground-based UHF advanced long-range radars, it provides a unique capability of permanent surveillance, early detection and trajectory follow-up of long-range threats.

All elements are managed through Thales’ SkyView command and control (C2) system, with SkyView Alliance ensuring seamless interoperability with NATO and allied multi-domain platforms.

Built on an open, modular architecture, SkyDefender integrates easily with existing defences and can be further developed as threats evolve. The development and deployment of the system is open to partnerships with other industrial players.

SkyDefender is fully compatible with a wide variety of sensors and weapon systems, including those from different manufacturers and existing legacy platforms.

Read more here.