A baguette-sized missile will prove to be the most important weapon in modern warfare, the chief executive of a leading defence company has said.
The Mark 1 may only span 65cm and be smaller than the average human arm, but the missile developed by Frankenburg Technology will be crucial in countering Moscow’s growing drone capabilities.
The pitch is simple: as Russia continues to develop lethal drones that are cheap and highly scalable amid the war with Ukraine, the interceptors must also be quick off the rail and affordable.
As a cost-effective air defence optimised for mass-production, Mark 1 is billed to be the perfect antidote to the short-range aerial threats of the 21st century.
‘We aim to produce missiles 10 times cheaper and 100 times more than what’s currently possible,’ said Kusti Salm, the former chief civil servant in Estonia’s defence ministry.
‘It’s about redefining the economies of air defence… and this is, frankly speaking, the only reason why the Russians are putting all their efforts into drone manufacturing.’
On September 9, after 20 Russian drones intercepted the Poland border in an unprecedented incursion, NATO was forced to deploy F-16s worth around £500,000 to shoot them down.
But such military tactics are not economically sustainable in the long-term, because Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed drones only cost around £50,000 each.
While traditional missile systems are costly and slow to produce, the affordable, agile and AI-guided Mark 1 promises to equip Europe with a modern response to the realities of drone warfare.
‘We are not afraid to say we are manufacturing [weapons] to take down Russian long-range drones,’ Frankenburg CEO Salm said.
‘And we are not all apologetic about the fact that this will be the most-needed capability in the Western world in the next five to 10 years.’
The Mark 1 will be the world’s smallest guided missile, designed to intercept low, slow, massed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at an altitude of two kilometers (1.2 miles) – similar to what the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 (Geran-2) drones typically fly at.
The interceptor is designed for serial production rather than bespoke performance, meaning a balance has been struck between the search for cheap parts and overall capability.
In September, the company said that 53 live fire tests have taken place, but accuracy hovers at around 56 per cent (a figure it hopes to eventually boost to 90 per cent).
Factories have already been set up in two NATO nations, with the aim to produce hundreds of missiles per day.
Although Salm has not yet indicated a price for the weapon, he confirmed it will cost roughly a tenth of existing rocket defence systems (European IRIS-T missiles are priced at roughly €400,000).
As part of a dangerous race with Russia to improve drone technology, Ukraine is currently developing its own own cheap interceptor drones that cost $1,000 to $5,000 per unit.
They can accelerate to a speed of about 330 kilometers per hour before hitting their targets.
The Mark 1 uses solid rocket propellant and will be guided to its target using AI, enabling the missile to offer real-time situational awareness to detect, track and ultimately neutralise UAVs.
The system can be mounted on a moving platform or a static installation, and once fired it does not require a persistent data link to the launcher – keeping the engagement chain short and less vulnerable to electronic interference.
The miniature missile’s speed is approximately 750 mph, faster than Shaheds which reach speeds of 115 mph.
The Mark 1 is a fraction of the cost of Patriot interceptors, which can be over £3 million.
Extensive use of cheap drones by Moscow in the Ukraine war has necessitated the development of a corresponding cost-effective counter-drone technology across NATO.
Russia launched nearly 6,900 drones at Ukraine in September, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said, including more than 3,600 Shaheds.
Originally designed in Iran and mass-produced in Russia under the name Geran-2, the drones have become a central part of Vladimir Putin’s onslaught and are frequently used to target cities and civilian infrastructure.
Russia is understood to have produced more than 6,000 one-way attack (OWA) UAVs in 2024, according to Ukrainian sources, and has seemed to only increase these numbers through 2025.
Salm has previously accusing the West of doing ‘virtually nothing’ to solve the recurrent drone threat that has plagued European airspace over recent months.
Short-range air defence (SHORAD) will be the ‘biggest need in the world’ over the next five to ten years, he said, if NATO is to stand a chance against Russia.
While a conventional IM-92 Stinger missile costs close to half a million dollars, the cheap and scalable Mark 1 might be the key to European air defence in the future.
To innovate air defence manufacturing, Frankenburg hired world-renowned experts, including chief engineer Andreas Bappert who designed the highly sought-after Iris-T air defence system.
The company also employs the chief engineer working on the Spear III missile at MBDA UK, alongside Latvian experts.
They are doing ‘stuff that you cannot learn over a weekend from YouTube videos, as you can with drones’, Salm said. ‘There are no Rocket Science for Dummies books that you can order from Amazon.’
It comes as British troops and military kit are being sent to Belgium to help defend the country’s skies against suspected Russian drones.
It comes after dozens of flights at Belgium’s main international airport in Brussels were cancelled last week after drone sightings forced it to close temporarily.
Drones were also seen in other locations, including a military base.
Sir Richard, the chief of defence staff, said Britain had since agreed to a Belgian government request for support from NATO allies.
Sir Richard said it was not known if the recent incursions into Belgian airspace were by Russia, but added it was ‘plausible’ they had been ordered by Moscow.
