British startup develops 100-mile strike missile

Cody Aerospace & Defence, a British company founded in February, has unveiled its first product, the Badger Mk1 ground-launched strike missile, along with plans for a factory to build it and a goal of replenishing stockpiles in under a year.

The company announced the missile at the Apex Europe defense show in London this week. It says Badger Mk1 will fly 70 to 100 miles (about 110 to 160 km) and carry a warhead of up to 100 kg (220 pounds), and that it is aimed at NATO members and allied armies as a ground-to-ground indirect fire weapon. The missile would launch from a converted ISO shipping container, sold together with radar and fire control so a customer buys a complete system.

Badger is still in the design phase, and Cody is raising pre-seed capital. Founder Henry Price told the UK Defence Journal the company wants to bring the missile to development maturity, including testing, within 18 months to two years, using seekers, rocket motors and guidance systems bought off the shelf from existing suppliers. Cody has not announced any customers, a unit price or test dates.

Cody also announced Ordnance One, the factory where it plans to build Badger. The company says the plant would also produce other companies’ and countries’ weapons under license. It has not said where the factory will be built or how much it will cost.

Price, who spent 15 years at large defense contractors and their main suppliers before founding Cody, said the company’s pitch rests on stockpile numbers.

“If you look at the problem statement of seven to ten days of stockpiles on the shelf for the UK in intensive warfare, and three years to replace it, that’s all we need to solve,” said Price.

He said Cody is aiming for a replenishment cycle of under a year once the missile is in production, compared with the roughly three years he says it takes to replace stocks bought off the shelf from the United States. He added that U.S. defense orders carry priority ratings that generally put American customers first, which he said can stretch delivery to four or five years. Cody also plans to add an interceptor missile to the same container launcher “a couple of years” after Badger, giving one vehicle both strike and air defense roles.

Price said Cody is lining up British suppliers for explosives and rocket motors, but acknowledged that rare earths and composites depend on supply chains Europe does not fully control. He said a fully British supply chain would cost three to four times as much, according to suppliers.

“I want engineers to be delivering capability, not managing obsolescence,” said Price.

He also argued that NATO should standardize rocket munitions so any similar-sized round can be fired from different allied launchers, and said Cody’s software and fire control will be open source.

The UK government has been trying to rebuild weapons stocks since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Price said the Defence Investment Plan set aside £11.1 billion (about $14.8 billion) for stockpiles and that Cody wants to help the Ministry of Defence spend it more efficiently. Another British startup, Cambridge Aerospace, has already moved from founding to a Ministry of Defence order for its Skyhammer interceptor in less than two years.