Frankenburg opens Baltic region’s first missile factory in Riga

Estonian defense startup Frankenburg Technologies opened its first missile production facility in Riga on June 23, 2026, the first such plant in the Baltic region and the opening site in its plan to mass-produce low-cost air defense interceptors. 

The Riga Weapon System and Missile Assembly Factory will build the company’s Mark I guided missile, handling electronics assembly, weapon system assembly, fire control integration, production testing and quality control. Frankenburg said the site was built in 12 months and is organized around modular production stations and standardized workflows. 

European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius attended the ribbon-cutting, alongside Airis Rikveilis, State Secretary at Latvia’s Ministry of Defence, and Frankenburg Chief Production Officer Juhan Tenisson. 

A modular production model 

The plant is the first operational example of FieldFoundry, Frankenburg’s model for high-volume missile manufacturing. The company said the approach can be deployed in existing buildings, temporary structures or containerized installations and replicated across sites, with a standard configuration sized for up to 100 missiles per day. 

Together with a planned final assembly site at Ādaži, the Latvian base where Frankenburg ran its first full intercept of a Shahed-type drone in December 2025, the two locations are intended to form the company’s first complete FieldFoundry system.  

Frankenburg said the pairing should reach a combined capacity of up to 100 missiles per day by the end of 2026. The Riga site covers about 1,000 square meters and is expected to employ up to 50 people. 

Scaling toward higher volumes 

The company said it plans to produce 1,500 missiles in 2026 as it ramps from low-rate production, and to open further FieldFoundry sites in Estonia, the United Kingdom and Poland.  

It has set a long-term target of one million missiles a year, which chief executive Kusti Salm, a former permanent secretary at Estonia’s Ministry of Defence, framed as the scale European air defense will eventually need. Frankenburg billed the Riga site as the first affordable mass-production missile factory of its kind. 

Airbus Bird of Prey at Eurosatory 2026 (Credit: AeroTime)

The Mark I is a fire-and-forget interceptor that Frankenburg has positioned as a cheaper answer to mass drone attacks, with the company saying it can cut the cost of an intercept by more than 10 times. The missile was the first weapon fired from Airbus’ uncrewed Bird of Prey interceptor during its maiden flight on March 30, 2026.  

The opening adds to a wider European effort to field cheaper counter-drone systems, driven in part by repeated drone incursions over the Baltic states.The post Frankenburg opens Baltic region’s first missile factory in Riga appeared first on AeroTime.

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