As the true implications of the freshly published Defence Investment Plan slowly surface, the MoD reveals that it has cancelled its plans for a Mid Life Upgrade for the MBDA METEOR, electing to redirect the funding towards its Future Air Superiority Effects (FASE) project for future air weapons.
The existence of FASE was revealed during 2025 when it was described as being in “pre-concept” stage. It is a multi-stage family of projects which is supposed to address the whole range of threats from “easy” but numerous targets such as swarming drones to high-end jet fighters operating behind heavy electronic warfare screens.
On 1 April 2026, the UK and France signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a 12-months study that “will assess the future threat landscape and develop new missile concepts capable of meeting the challenges of air warfare in the coming decades. The study will examine which technologies should be incorporated into a next-generation weapon system and establish a roadmap for its development”. It was described in the occasion as a successor to the METEOR, but at the time it was understood it would be additional to plans to upgrade and life extend METEOR itself. At least as far as the UK is concerned, this is no longer the case.
It must be noted that the UK has been trying to get a METEOR MLU and/or a successor design moving for many years now. Activities began already around 2013/14 when the first steps were moved towards what became the Joint New Air to Air Missile joint project with Japan. JNAAM looked at an evolved METEOR with Japanese AESA seeker, but eventually died out in 2023 when Japan decided to create a whole new, national missile instead.
More recently, Germany reserved some €60 million for initial work on a METEOR MLU and talks between partners were supposed to lead to decisions in the course of 2025.
The UK’s National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) Major Projects report released in July 2025 and covering the Financial Year 2024-25 contained some fragments of information about the ongoing discussions for a METEOR MLU, noting: "This project is AMBER (a UK color-based classification of the relative risks to feasibility and schedule of projects, Green, Amber and Red) because of uncertainty on the scale and shape of any future Meteor development, and the challenges of reaching consensus on the development path for Meteor across all six partner nations".
Again, the same report noted that the project’s “end date” was moved from 31 December 2033 to 31 December 2048. While this does not necessarily equate to assumed Out of Service dates for METEOR, the report noted that the change was due to the assumption that by the end of 2033 the UK would be taking delivery of the newly upgraded METEOR “Mk2”. It cautioned: “The programme schedule, and end date, are subject to change during 2025 as Partner Nations aim to reach a consensus on the development path for Meteor”.
The NISTA report for 2025/26 should be published shortly and might provide interesting hints as to how those assumptions changed. The UK’s surprising decision follows developments in France as well. In April this year, with the French Military Planning Law process, we learned of "COMET", described as a replacement for METEOR, rather than an upgrade.
The aim is to have COMET already by 2030 and great priority has been accorded to it in the document, with substantial funding reserved. In documents it is described as a very long range missile “successor to the METEOR”, but some uncertainty persists on what the actual French plan is.
Some sources suggest COMET is not connected to the 12-months study with Britain and is not alternative to a METEOR MLU, but more “additional”. It might be a French-only development building more on the MICA missile base than METEOR.
At present, the situation remains unclear and the timeline for the UK’s FASE effort remains anybody’s guess. The activities we are observing on both France and the UK’s side, however, can only raise concern as to the status of international discussions over a METEOR MLU.
Notably, on April 6, immediately after the UK-France MoU for a METEOR successor came to light, Sweden’s Defence Minister Pål Jonson declared that he had already held talks with London and Paris and he “did not rule out” Sweden joining the study.
The UK and France decisions might or might not signal a wider consensus on the opportunity of skipping a METEOR MLU in favour of a new development. It will be interesting to observe reactions in Italy, Germany and Spain, the remaining founding METEOR partners.
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