Leonardo Sees Michelangelo Dome Trials In Ukraine
ROME—Leonardo plans to demonstrate elements of its new Michelangelo Dome project in Ukraine as early as this year, as it sets its sights on networking air and missile defenses Europe-wide.
“The first component of the Michelangelo Dome … is now under construction for our friends in Ukraine,” CEO Roberto Cingolani said March 12 in presenting the company’s updated industrial plan. The effort will focus on the point-defense layer of the architecture to engage low-flying and hard-to-detect threats, such as drone swarms, he noted.
NATO trials are due next year, he said.
Cingolani said the company’s new Earth-observation constellation it calls Space Guardian will be a key feature of the dome project to spot threats as they are readied to be launched. It is due to come online in 2028. Other core elements of the system are due to reach full operational capability around 2030, though the system will evolve further.
Leonardo plans for the idea of the Michelangelo Dome to work across countries in which one government’s satellite may find a threat, a radar in another tracks it and someone else fires an interceptor, all based on the optimum engagement setup. The company is in talks with 20 countries to help realize the vision, Cingolani said.
He called that collaborative approach the only way to provide Europe with a defensive shield, arguing many national dome approaches will not yield the needed outcome.
Leonardo is planning a plug-in module it calls MC5 to help systems to talk to each other, including legacy assets across different operational domains. The module is the core of the current development effort, and the company’s electronics unit would be the main business, though not the only one, involved in the dome ambition.
The Michelangelo Dome project that Leonardo launched last year aims to protect critical infrastructure, urban areas, territories and assets of national and European interest. Leonardo said it could generate about €6 billion ($7 billion) in business opportunities through the end of the decade and a further €15 billion between 2031-35.
Cingolani said the company is looking to financially profit from the endeavor largely through services revenue, rather than hardware sales, though noted it could deliver those, too.
The project helps underpin Leonardo’s new financial target of reaching €30 billion in sales in 2030. The company that had a €21.3 billion 2028 sales target under a plan unveiled two years ago now expects to reach €24.9 billion in that year before going higher. Sales would be more than double the 2022 figure. Order bookings in 2030 should be €32 billion, the company said, with its backlog reaching €62.5 billion.
