A shoulder-fired missile that can travel over three times the speed of sound is being brought back into production after its deployment in Ukraine revived interest in the weapon.
, the French defense and technology giant, is restarting production of the Starstreak for the first time in more than a decade as Ukraine uses the superfast air-defense system to help repel Russian attacks.
The move is the latest example of how demand for weapons from Ukraine, combined with increased military spending by Western governments, is reviving once moribund production lines.
But the Starstreak’s relaunch could take more than a year, Thales says, underlining how the complexity of manufacturing weapons and industrywide supply-chain issues are slowing down Western rearmament in the face of rising geopolitical tensions.
“It will take a bit of time to order and to produce and deliver these missiles,” Thales Chief Executive Patrice Caine said of the overall task of boosting weapons production. “The lead times are quite long,” he added. One issue is the need to build up inventories of components.
The Starstreak will be made at Thales’s factory in Northern Ireland, which is already working to boost production of two other critical weapons for Ukraine. Those include an antitank missile that made headlines by destroying dozens of Russian tank columns early in the war.
Starstreak was commissioned by Britain and designed in the 1980s during the Cold War before entering service the following decade. Since then, the weapon—initially made by a company that Thales later acquired—has been exported around the world from Belfast, where its last production round was in 2012.
Last year, the U.K. government sent Ukraine a batch of the missiles from its own stockpiles as part of a broader package of thousands of surface-to-air weapons.
Thales is now restarting Starstreak production amid increased interest in the weapon, company executives said, with an initial order for an undisclosed number of missiles to replenish U.K. supplies. Both Thales and Britain’s Defense Ministry declined to comment on the cost of the weapon.
The Starstreak is unique among portable air-defense systems. The missile, which can be fired off the shoulder, accelerates to greater than Mach 3 in a fraction of a second before releasing three laser-guided darts toward a target. It can hit targets more than 4 miles away.
Starstreak Re-Emerges
The Ukraine war has revived interest in the Starstreak missile, a veteran air-defense system.
Range: 4.3 mi
Weight: 30.86 lbs
Speed: Over Mach 3
The British-made missile is faster than the main variant of Raytheon Technologies’ Stinger, a U.S. portable antiaircraft missile, which can hit speeds of up to Mach 2.9, according to Janes, the defense intelligence company.
While the Stinger is a so-called heat-seeking missile, the Starstreak is guided to its target by the operator. That method places a greater burden on its operator but means the missile is less susceptible to countermeasures, such as flares, and can hit smaller targets that give off less heat, said Ian Williams, an expert on missile technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
The Ukraine war is promoting a rethink of various weapons programs.
Thales is also looking into restarting a production line of 120 mm ammunition, used in mortars and tanks, that has been dormant for 10 years, Caine said. Ukraine has drained stocks of artillery shells held by the U.S. and its allies.
BAE has said it is considering restarting production of the M777 howitzer, whose use on Ukrainian battlefields has revived interest in making an artillery piece that was being wound down.
BAE has also cautioned of a lengthy timeline. The company needs to find a new supplier of titanium as well as various components. A spokeswoman for BAE said the company is still exploring a potential restart.
Companies across the arms industry say they still face shortages of labor, computer chips, rocket motors and propellant, as well as higher costs.
More than half of major U.S. defense acquisition programs were delayed last year because of supplier disruptions and other problems, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
U.S. arms maker Raytheon had to redesign some parts of its Stinger missile after receiving its first orders for the weapon in almost two decades in 2021. Parts used in earlier versions of the portable antiaircraft system were no longer produced.
Thales also faces the challenge of making sure its manufacturing process follows current regulations. Starstreak’s manufacturing process, for instance, previously used some chemicals that are now prohibited, said Alex Cresswell, chief executive of Thales’ U.K. arm.
Thales’s Belfast site also assembles the NLAW antitank missile system. Photo: Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press
A version of the Starstreak is also set to be made in India as part of a deal reached before the Ukraine war.
At Thales’s Belfast site, resumption of the missile’s production will add to an already busy schedule.
The factory is working to backfill some of Britain’s stocks of the Lightweight Multirole Missile system, a spokesman said. The short-range missile was sent by the U.K. to Ukraine last year, where it has been used to shoot down Russian drones.
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The site also assembles the NLAW antitank missile system, putting together parts made by Sweden’s Saab, the weapon’s designer.
The system played a significant role in the defense of Kyiv in the opening stages of the war, when Ukrainian forces used it on Russian tank convoys advancing on the city, according to a Ukrainian military spokesman.
Since the war in Ukraine, Saab said it has received orders for around $400 million worth of new NLAWs from the U.K., Finland and Sweden.
“We are making them like crazy,” Cresswell said.
Asa Fitch contributed to this article.
Write to Alistair MacDonald at
Alistair.Macdonald@wsj.com