Leonardo is positioning itself to become a mass distributor of space-enabled missile defense shields.
The Italian A&D prime announced last week it would begin testing its Michelangelo Dome missile-defense system in Ukraine before the end of the year. But that’s just the beginning.
In the company’s longer-term plan also released last week, Leonardo laid out a larger vision to turn the company into a global security power player by 2030.
Shoot for the stars: Leonardo’s plan for the next five years hinges on two expansive projects—Michelanglo Dome and Space Guardian—going right. The company expects the global annual defense spending pie
to increase to $1T+ by 2030. The results of the “high reward” side of the equation for Leonardo are projected to include:
- €30B ($34.4B) in yearly revenue;
- +20% growth in Space Division revenue;
- +14.5% growth in Cyber Division revenue;
- +20% in headcount.
Michelangelo Dome: Fittingly named after another Renaissance artist, Leonardo’s Michaelangelo Dome, a multi-domain defense shield, aims to be a masterpiece of modern protection. The dome’s objective is to create a “dead zone” between 10 km and 15 km—expandable if needed—to detect, track, and terminate threats across a full span of modern attack modes: drone swarms, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, saturating attacks, surface/subsurface naval threats, and hostile ground forces.
Michaelangelo will come with automated threat responses to select the most appropriate effectors per target, and rely on an MC5 module (the “brain” of the operation) to coordinate information across domains, including third-party systems.
Beyond the company’s trial in Ukraine, Leonardo has plans for NATO trials in 2027, which will pit the system against ballistic missiles. Leonardo is also in talks with ~20 countries that have expressed interest in using Michaelangelo for themselves, according to CEO Roberto Cingolani.
Leonardo expects Michaelangelo Dome to open up €21B ($24B) in new business opportunities over the next decade—€6B ($6.9B) by 2030, and €15B ($17.2B) more by 2035.
Space Guardian: Leonardo’s planned EO constellation, unveiled in March 2025, will provide the eyes of the Michaelangelo Dome. Space Guardian will consist of 20 sats launched in batches beginning NET than 2027, with capabilities including SAR, very high-resolution optical payloads, high-powered compute, and advanced-optical-comms links.
The idea is for the system to be interoperable with other national and European-wide systems—Copernicus, IRIDE, COSMO-SkyMed, etc.—but Leonardo has invested in infrastructure to ensure that the system can interact in near-real-time to competently defend from a range of threats.
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