Meteor

Europe's air-superiority equalizer — Meteor is the world's only operational ramjet-powered air-to-air missile, and that engine is the whole point: instead of a rocket motor that burns out early and leaves the missile coasting, Meteor's throttleable ramjet keeps thrust available all the way to the target, giving it a "no-escape zone" several times larger than the American AMRAAM's. Built by six European nations through MBDA for the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen, it is the West's premier long-range air-to-air weapon — and it is now reaching Ukraine.

Overview

Meteor is a beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) developed by MBDA for six European nations — the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Sweden. Its defining feature is propulsion: a throttleable solid-fuel ducted ramjet that, unlike a conventional rocket motor, can modulate thrust and keep accelerating or sustaining speed across the missile's flight, rather than burning out in the first seconds and gliding the rest of the way. The practical effect is a dramatically larger no-escape zone — the region within which a target cannot outrun or out-turn the missile even with a perfect evasive break — reported at roughly three times that of the AIM-120 AMRAAM. Combined with an active radar seeker and a two-way datalink (so the launching aircraft can update or retarget it in flight), Meteor gives European fighters a decisive reach-and-kill advantage in long-range air combat. It is, in MBDA's framing, the missile that lets a Typhoon or Rafale shoot first and keep the enemy pinned.

Development

Meteor grew from a UK-led requirement for a next-generation BVRAAM, with development consolidated under MBDA from around 2002 across the six partner nations, per Wikipedia and Airforce Technology. The ramjet propulsion was the high-risk, high-reward technical bet that defines the weapon. It entered operational service in the mid-2010s, first on Sweden's Gripen, then on the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale, and is being integrated onto the F-35 Lightning II — though that integration, driven by the US-led F-35 Joint Program Office, has slipped, with Think Defence noting the F-35B timeline pushed from 2027 to the early 2030s. Beyond the six partners, Meteor has been exported widely (including a large UAE package with Rafale), and — significantly — Ukraine is receiving Meteor as part of Sweden's Gripen C/D donation, bringing the missile into the highest-intensity air war in Europe.

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