British startup will offer its low-cost drone-killing missiles to Japan’s Ministry of Defense, pricing each round at several million yen — tens of thousands of dollars — while already supplying the UK military.
Cambridge Aerospace intends to set up production in Japan and pitch its Skyhammer interceptor to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
Skyhammer is designed to defeat Shahed-type attack drones and slower cruise missiles with >30 km range and ~700 km/h top speed.
Each interceptor is priced at several million yen, marketed as tens of times cheaper than conventional air-defense missiles.
# What happened Cambridge Aerospace, a British startup, plans to build its low-cost drone interceptor missiles in Japan and offer them to Japan's Ministry of Defense. The company told the Nikkei that each round would cost several million yen — described as the equivalent of tens of thousands of U.S. dollars — far less than conventional air-defense missiles.
# What Skyhammer is designed to do
# Why price matters The company frames Skyhammer as tens of times cheaper than traditional interceptors. That pricing logic responds to combat experience where mass-produced attack drones can make repeated engagements uneconomical if each interception requires a missile that costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Cambridge's several-million-yen unit price targets that imbalance.
# Development and evidence
# Contracts, funding, and company background April 10, 2026, that it would buy a "significant number" of Skyhammer interceptors and launchers for UK forces and Gulf partners, with deliveries starting in May. In July the company won an award under the five-nation LEAP program, and in August Cambridge Aerospace raised $300 million at a reported $3.4 billion valuation.
Cambridge Aerospace was founded in 2024 by Steven Barrett, a former MIT aeronautics professor who holds the Regius Professorship of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and Chris Sylvan, formerly responsible for business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Anduril Industries. Former British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps is chair of the company.
# Other products and U.S. ties
# What this means for Japan Cambridge's planned local production signals an attempt to make a price-competitive kinetic counter-drone option available to Japan's Ministry of Defense. Japan has been buying drones rapidly and exploring various counter-drone concepts. Offering production inside Japan may be intended to address procurement preferences and to make cost-effective interceptors more accessible for defensive use.
# Bottom line Cambridge Aerospace is pushing a low-cost kinetic interceptor strategy with Skyhammer, leveraging rapid development, UK procurement, and fresh funding. The company's move to produce in Japan aims to pair aggressive unit pricing with local availability for Japan's MOD.
Cheap attack drones costing tens of thousands of dollars are forcing European militaries to rethink one of the most basic calculations of modern air defense: how much should it cost to destroy an incoming threat? The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that a defender can technically win an interception while losing econom
Foreign-origin counter-drone technology is entering India’s defence manufacturing ecosystem at a crucial juncture.The armed forces are actively developing requirements for systems capable of physically intercepting hostile unmanned aerial vehicles. This development highlights the growing urgency of kinetic solutions in
Boeing plans to offer Japan’s Ministry of Defense a drone it developed jointly with the Royal Australian Air Force, as Tokyo works out a new coastal defense concept built around unmanned aircraft, according to the Nikkei. Boeing’s defense division president, Steve Parker, told Nikkei the company will propose its MQ-28
Loading more related stories...
Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.