The current system, operated by 49
Bty Royal Artillery, could succeed itself
At DSEI, I had a chance to talk with Richard Turner, Business Development
Manager for SKYKEEPER at Lockheed Martin UK Ampthill. A RAF veteran with a
background in Air Control, Richard feels strongly for the capability he is
overseeing and developing. As an Operation HERRICK veteran, he also noted his
relationship with LEAPP / SKYKEEPER began earlier than he initially realized,
as the Sense and Warn solution used in Afghanistan to warn personnel of
incoming indirect fire used elements of LEAPP.
We
discussed the latest developments and the Army trials and demonstrations
SKYKEEPER has been involved in, with an eye to the possible future role of SK
as C2 solution for ground based air defence.
Lockheed
Martin is actively talking to other UK firms as it considers how to pursue the
opportunity of becoming the Lead System Integrator for the Land GBAD programme.
A pre-market notice has been published by the MOD recently alerting Industry of
the need for such a figure.
The Land Ground Based Air Defence programme is a multi-project enterprise to be delivered across 3 “Capability Uplift Periods”, the first of which has essentially concluded, having seen the delivery of a number of new capabilities including GIRAFFE 1X radars for improved counter-drone capability within SHORAD batteries and the introduction of soldier-borne C-UAS sensors and kinetic and non-kinetic soldier-borne C-UAS effectors (SMASH computer sighs for assault rifles; electronic / jammer “guns”).
The (unfortunately slow) growth of SKY SABRE Medium Range Air Defence batteries is also underway, most notably with the recent order to MBDA for new launchers and the procurement of more trucks for reloads, for battery logistics support and also new engagement modules.
6 additional SKY SABRE 'systems' are being procured (22 August 2025 announcement), 'doubling' the number of deployable systems. A lot of confusion is caused by the MoD too liberally using "launcher" and 'system' interchangeably, as if they were one and the same. But as the MOD itself notes in its press release, a “system” is comprised of 3 main elements: radar, C2, and launcher.
More accurately still, a complete system, correctly called a Fire Group, has 3 launchers by design. Unfortunately, at this moment in time it’s impossible to say for sure how many launchers the British Army can truly count on. The 4 batteries of 16 Regiment Royal Artillery, each composed of 2 independent Fire Group, would need 24 launchers to express their full potential but it’s unclear if they actually have anywhere near that many.
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| The 3 elements of a SKY SABRE Fire Group seen in Poland at the start of operation STIFFTAIL, which saw a Fire Group (with at least 2 launchers) deployed there until December 2024. Closer to camera, the Rafael-supplied C4I shelter; then the GIRAFFE AMB radar and further away a launcher vehicle. The usual slogan that a CAMM "system" can control up to 24 missiles in flight at the same time is exactly the reason why a full Fire Group should have 3 (3x8=24 missiles) launchers |
An earlier letter by Lord Coaker had evidenced that “growth” was underway to get to 9 “launchers”, with deliveries known to be underway in 2024 under an earlier, unannounced procurement by the previous Government. If we were to take the language literally, 9 + 6 launchers would lead (within 3 years, an unacceptably long time) to just 15 total launchers, which would mean that a “massed” deployment in the field would see Fire Groups having 1 to 2 launchers at most.
The latest procurement, also includes “12 fire unit support vehicles for ammunition, 8 vehicles for baggage, and 8 threat evaluation and weapon assignment systems”.
The “Fire Unit Support Vehicles” are 6-tonner HX-60 4x4 truck with flatbed that carry a complete "clip" of 8 missiles that the launcher truck can hook and drag into position, DROPS-style. The “baggage” vehicle should be, again, a 6-tonner HX-60 flatbed with tail crane. Vehicles of this type are commonly seen with SKY SABRE Fire Groups and the tail crane is also used to aid reloading of single canisters where needed.
The “threat evaluation and weapon assignment systems” should be the C4I heart of a Fire Group, in theory, but the inconsistent language used by the MOD introduces doubt about what exactly they are talking about.
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| A SKY SABRE launcher (right, mostly out of frame) hooks a reload clip of 8 CAMM missiles from a HX60 ammunition truck. |
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| The HX60 flatbed wth tail crane truck seen here (left) is (probably) what DE&S called "baggage" truck in their news release. Unfortunately we are always bound to interpret what the MoD says. |
The next big event, at the sharp end, should be the formal selection of the new vehicle base (expected to be the Patria 6x6) and the new turret for the new Manoeuvre SHORAD Fire Unit destined to replace STORMER.
Getting back to SKYKEEPER proper, the relevant project to look for is the new C2 system which, towards 2030, is meant to ensure maximum interconnection of the various systems and batteries across the battlefield.
The new C2 is a key capability upgrade, part of the wider CUP2 and 3 “eras” which are meant to field capability between 2026 and 2030.
During 2024, the MOD communicated, with an ex-ante voluntary transparency notice, its intention to award Northrop Grumman 2 small 6-months contracts, active from 1st October 2024, to assess the feasibility of adopting their Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) and Forward Area Air Defence (FAAD) C2 systems to meet British needs.
Until 2029, however, the task of building and distributing a Recognized Air Picture to UK land formations will fall on SKYKEEPER, and that could continue well into the 2030s. It remains more than possible, after all, that SKYKEEPER is actually selected, in the end, to succeed itself.
The SKYKEEPER in service with the Army and the SKYKEEPER full potential are, after all, currently two very different things.
From
LEAPP to SKYKEEPER
We need to take a look back in time to understand how we got to the current situation.
In Afghanistan, the British Armed Forces
initially fielded “Automated Sense and Warn”, a capability acquired under Urgent Operational
Requirement (UOR) which integrated Saab GIRAFFE AMB radars, MAMBA (Saab ARTHUR
C) counter-battery radars and other sensors, networking through an early Land
Environment Air Picture Provision (LEAPP) C2 system and feeding into WAVES
towers to sound alarms and warn personnel on base of incoming attacks.
The “true”
LEAPP came into service while Operation HERRICK came to a close. Deliveries of
the core LEAPP equipment concluded in October 2014 and it was only in 2015 that
49 (Inkerman) Battery Royal Artillery became operational with the system.
LEAPP as
originally delivered comprised of 5 Saab Giraffe Agile Multi Beam (AMB) radars;
4 “Control nodes” (shelters carried on MAN SV HX60 4x4 trucks); 3 Air picture
trailers and a single Link 11 (receive-only) access node for use primarily by 3rd
Commando Brigade, manned by 29 Commando RA. Link 11 was then very necessary to
access data coming from warships; now Link 16 is more universal, even at sea,
and indeed Link 22 is coming in.
A JAPPLE Tactical Data Link provided a Receive-only data link 16 capability and capability to forward the Recognized Air Picture (RAP) to remote terminals.
LEAPP
relays on external communication bearers in the field, primarily the Army’s
FALCON battlefield Wide Area Network. Relevant information for air defence
needs is circulated on the GBAD BISA (Ground Based Air Defence Battlefield
Information System Application), a dedicate BOWMAN mode for transmission of air
defence information.
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| LEAPP elements from 49 Bty in the Field. The 8x8 trucks are GIRAFFE AMB radars (folded), while two Tactical Nodes follow. |
In the simplest possible terms, LEAPP uses “its own” assigned radars and data coming in via data link through other sources, including from Air and Sea, to build a Recognized Air Picture that it then supplies to Land HQs (Divisions, Brigades, etc).
LEAPP has
been used extensively since, but the field of radios, data links and
electronics has evolved very quickly. By 2020, LEAPP in its original form, very
bespoke, very “bulky”, very closed architecture, was already showing its age
and the Army started to plan out upgrades.
The
requirement as published was ambitious, but intelligent: LEAPP needed to evolve “to have a small form factor, which is essential to allow its continued
deployment into LAND HQ’s.
The new small factor system must integrate GIRAFFE-AMB radars using an ASTERIX
standard, a Link 16 Multifunctional Information Distribution System-Joint
Tactical Radio System (MIDS-JTRS) tactical data link terminal and external
systems using a Joint Range Extension Applications Protocol-C (JREAP-C)
interface. The means to connect the Command and Control (C2) to multiple
G-AMB’s via both wireless and wired links is required. The LEAPP requirement is
for the provision of 5 sets, each comprising C2, Human Machine
Interface (HMI), TDL and communication equipment. Each set should be provided in ruggedised cases allowing the system to
be man-portable”.
Lockheed Martin UK
agreed that all these demands were eminently sensible and worked on exactly
these lines to develop LEAPP into SKYKEEPER. Unfortunately, when the MOD
finally awarded the contract for the Life Extension of LEAPP, in January 2022,
the funding was insufficient to go with the full ambition and the form factor
reduction was left out of the project entirely.
LM upgraded all of the
LEAPP systems, replacing the old software with new, open-architecture,
ITAR-free, UK-sovereign SKYKEEPER software but the system is still bound to
trailers and shelters carried on trucks, when it no longer needs to be that
conspicuous (and thus vulnerable).
SKYKEEPER now and in the future
SKYKEEPER
now is fully capable of working with Link 16 MIDS/JTRS with the potential for
JREAP-C and also offers a wider array of options to connect with lower tactical
echelons via radio and Wide Area Networks. It also enables
Mode V IFF data receipt from the G-AMB radars. The new system is more user-friendly, the Human
Machine Interface having been completely revised, making it easier to exploit
information and streamlining decision-making.
Lockheed
Martin has developed SK FLEX, a “boxed” solution that delivers exactly the
man-portable solution the British Army wanted, allowing the set up and movement
of nodes within buildings, battlefield fortifications or other expedient
locations.
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| SKYKEEPER FLEX in the field (photo Lockheed Martin) |
The British
Army has its eye on these new solutions. In January 2024, the Army deployed a
GIRAFFE AMB radar to the US for Project CONVERGENCE Capstone 4 but it did not
deploy a tactical node. Instead of taking one of its truck-carried shelters,
the Army packed 2 SK FLEX sets supplied by Lockheed Martin UK instead.
Once in the
US, a decision was made to further experiment by connecting the GIRAFFE AMB to
SK FLEX not by cable, as would usually be done with LEAPP (where the radars
were used specifically to build a Local air picture) but with a wireless link.
Lockheed Martin UK personnel on the ground sent the request back to Ampthill
and in the space of one night, time zone difference assisting, the UK
laboratories were able to send back a workable software solution.
Again in
2024, but in November, at the Army Warfighter Experiment (AWE), SK FLEX was
again central. A new sensor was used to help build the RAP, the small and
portable GIRAFFE 1X that the Army (and RAF Regiment) have procured specifically
to enhance short range and C-UAS air defence.
More
importantly still, the RAP from SK FLEX was distributed all the way down the
tactical echelons to an AJAX vehicle fitted with SK MANOEUVRE, a specific
SKYKEEPER solution meant to bring air picture data directly to combat vehicles.
For the demonstration, AJAX was temporarily fitted with a dedicate, extra
antenna in the camouflage bin, but a proper SK MANOEUVRE software load would
enable the crew to visualize the RAP directly on their existing screens, thanks
to AJAX being a digital vehicle with GVA architecture.
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| SKYKEEPER MANOEUVRE inside an FV432 (photo Lockheed Martin) |
Again, at AWE SKYKEEPER was also able to take in the feed from a number of infrared anti-drone cameras and integrated, for the first time, the Sensing for Asset Protection with Integrated Electronic Networked Technology (SAPIENT) protocol.
SAPIENT was
developed by the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) as an
open standard that allows the fusion and integration of autonomous sensory
information into a single integrated picture. The MOD, and then NATO as a
whole, adopted it as standard.
At AWE,
SKYKEEPER software was also loaded into the ground control station for TIQUILA,
the new pair of drones for the British Army, aka the Edge Autonomy Stalker
(renamed EAGLE) and the Lockheed Martin INDAGO 4 (renamed KESTREL). This
allowed an INDAGO 4 at the exercise to distribute its live video feed to AJAX
and beyond, all the way to dismounted soldiers who had SK software loaded into
their ATAK terminals.
Lockheed
Martin also offers another solution to bring the SKYKEEPER RAP to single,
non-digitized vehicles and/or dismounts or, say, STARSTREAK / LMM vSHORAD
teams. Called EDGE, this solution uses a tablet to receive and visualize a
local RAP.
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| SK EDGE, (photo Lockheed Martin) |
SKYKEEPER has demonstrated a lot of flexibility and capability in the field; the adoption of those capabilities now depends on Army choices (and budgets). One key upgrade that should be put under contract soon is the addition of Joint Range Extension Applications Protocol (JREAP) C, a crucial upgrade to enable SKYKEEPER to transmit information via data link over much greater distances.
The adoption of the “in-a-box” form factor is also a candidate enhancement the Army could order sometime soon.
The
future
SKYKEEPER
has demonstrated that it is agnostic to Sensors, Network and Effectors. It can
integrate data from a multitude of different sources and systems and distribute
information over different networks, in support of multiple different
effectors.
Lockheed Martin UK is pushing the system both domestically and abroad as a full, integrated C2 solution for GBAD needs, but also as a gateway that enables information distribution for other roles and domains.
For example, LM UK intends to push SKYKEEPER also as solution for the C2 element for Project SERPENS for new artillery-locating sensors (both radar and passive acoustical & optical detection).
“Condensed” variants of SKYKEEPER can also be used, on Commercial Off the Shelf electronics, for civilian counter-drone applications as well.
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| SKYKEEPER as a C2 network not just for Air Defence, but for multiple applications, forwarding data from multiple sources and sensors, to multiple effectors. SERPENS is the next big C2 opportunity. |
Back in April, then Minister Maria Eagle said in a Written Answer that the next phase of LGBAD improvements would see the achievement of “an Initial Operating Capability of Medium Range Air Defence for warfighting by July 2026. This includes 2 Surface-to-Air Missile Operations Centres, and 2 enhanced Wireless Enabled Network sets”. No additional information was provided, but this suggests progress on C2 solutions is expected.
Obviously, while wireless is by nature more vulnerable to jamming, EW and disturbs, it enables the network to spread over far greater distances, taking in and redistributing data to more and different sensors and allowing the weapon launchers to spread out far more to be more survivable and to expand the protected bubble. Arguably, the “wireless” element of IBCS is its main selling point: the Integrated Fire Control Network Relay towers are its distinguishing component: deployed alongside launchers or sensors, linked to them directly by cable, the IFCN connects them wirelessly into the overall network.
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| The main rival to SKYKEEPER is almost certainly IBCS. Note the all important Integrated Fire Control Network wireless relay masts deployed alongside sensors and launchers to network all elements together. |
It’s clear the UK needs to get to that kind of air defence (and beyond) network, in a way or another. Northrop Grumman’s IBCS, Lockheed Martin’s SKYKEEPER and a proposal by Thales and L3 Harris are the “obvious” contenders for the British Army’s Air Defence C2 needs. The frontrunners, to me at least, seem to be SKYKEEPER and IBCS: the Thales-L3 team offers an integration of L3Harris’ Target Orientated Tracking System (TOTS) into Thales’ Agile C4I @ Edge (ACE) but their offer is not as well established and a known measure as the other two contenders. SKYKEEPER is UK-sovereign and established (to a degree) as the incumbent, already in service; while IBCS is used by the US Army, Poland (importantly including with CAMM/CAMM ER missiles in the PILICA+ and NAREW batteries) and is planned for adoption by other NATO PATRIOT users such as Germany.
As with pretty much everything else in UK
Defence, we wait for actual decisions and contract awards to happen, hoping the
Defence Investment Plan will provide more clarity on the way forward.
