Aselsan’s Ogulbey hub expands Steel Dome capacity and assembles Europe’s largest integrated air-defense complex

Aselsan’s Ogulbey hub expands Steel Dome capacity and assembles Europe’s largest integrated air-defense complex

Published:

September 6, 2025

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Updated:

September 6, 2025

Air & Missile Defense Systems

Michael Adler

ANKARA – Turkey has launched a $1.5 billion expansion centered on Aselsan’s new Oğulbey Technology Base, an integrated campus officials describe as the largest single defense industry investment in the country and Europe’s biggest air-defense complex. The project is tied directly to Steel Dome, Ankara’s multi-layer air and missile defense architecture, and is planned to more than double Aselsan’s production capacity once the campus ramps.

The announcement came with hardware already lined up for delivery. During a media visit, 47 vehicle-based platforms fitted with Steel Dome subsystems and radars were presented for transfer to the Turkish Armed Forces. The package carries a value of about $460 million, and covers sensors, command assets and short- to long-range effectors.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan framed the buildout as the anchor of a broader modernization push. “This will also be the largest integrated air defense facility in Europe,” he said at the ceremony, adding that Aselsan sits at the center of Turkey’s defense ecosystem.

Company managers told visiting reporters the new campus will move into initial operations around mid-2026, with capacity increases continuing as new lines come online.

According to industry sources, the Oğulbey campus consolidates radar, air-defense production, electronic warfare and integration test assets in one location near Ankara. The goal is to compress development-to-production cycles for Steel Dome elements and align factory tooling with rising domestic demand.

Oğulbey investment details and expected ramp

Public statements place the campus investment at $1.5 billion, structured to scale serial production across several mission areas linked to Steel Dome.

Officials say the first phase should be commissioned by mid-2026. The company wants to bring machining, electronics, seeker assembly, final integration and acceptance testing closer together, then push throughput up without bouncing hardware across facilities.

Defense officials confirm the campus is designed to serve as a backbone for multiple layers in the Steel Dome construct, not a single program line. That includes long-range interceptors, medium-range batteries, very-short-range gun-missile systems, and the radar and battle management network that ties them. The facility targets export-compliant process controls and documentation from day one, so lines don’t need a retrofit if orders arrive from abroad.

Erdoğan’s claim that the site will be Europe’s largest integrated air-defense facility places a marker in a crowded market, but the physical model on display supports the scale argument. The campus assembles dispersed buildings into a connected flow, with cleanrooms, avionics integration hangars and radar production bays.

Aselsan’s investor disclosures earlier this year previewed these elements under a government “Project-Based Investment Incentive” package worth $616 million for enabling technologies tied to Steel Dome.

Deliveries tied to Steel Dome

The 47 platforms shown this week map closely to Steel Dome’s layered design.

Long-range SIPER batteries extend the engagement envelope against high-altitude threats.

Medium-range HISAR variants cover aircraft, cruise missiles and UAVs inside that ring.

KORKUT adds mobile gun-missile coverage at very short range, useful against drones and loitering munitions.

ALP surveillance radars feed the network with wide-area tracking. 

PUHU provides communications and electronic warfare functions to jam, deceive or harden links.
Officials did not publish exact counts per system at the event, but the distribution follows the layered logic Aselsan has outlined since last year.

A short explainer was offered at the event to situate Steel Dome for general audiences, comparing it with Israel’s Iron Dome and a proposed American “Golden Dome” concept. The Turkish approach is broader, aiming at a family of overlapping interceptors, sensors and command nodes instead of a single short-range shield. That breadth is why the production campus leans so heavily on integration and test areas as much as the missile lines themselves.

Financing incentives and the 14-site production and R and D tranche

The Oğulbey campus isn’t a standalone spend. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Industry and Technology cleared an incentives package of about $616 million for Aselsan across photon detectors, radar integration, air-defense production and smart ammunition facilities. 

Those investments became the upstream enablers for what Oğulbey will assemble and test at scale. The package fell under the country’s “Super Incentive” program, a label used in filings to the stock exchange and in government briefings.

This week’s ceremony also opened 14 additional production and R&D sites valued at roughly $280 million. It included a radar production and integration facility, an air-defense systems design office, electro-optics production lines, an advanced engineering materials R&D center, guided-munitions design and an avionics integration hangar. Organizing these functions alongside Oğulbey reduces vendor shuffle and should cut acceptance bottlenecks once orders scale.

Aselsan managers presented the new sites as a capacity lift of about forty percent for specific product families, not a blanket number for the entire company catalog. A careful reading suggests the largest gains sit in radar and seeker production, where cleanroom expansion and tool duplication matter most for surge capacity. The emphasis on materials labs points to domestic content goals for detector stacks and RF components that still lean on foreign suppliers in some bands.

NATO interoperability and export posture to Gulf states and Eastern Europe

Company leadership reiterated NATO compatibility during press engagements. Interfaces were described as tested on both NATO links and national Turkish links, with deliveries already running on those standards. 

That line answers two audiences at once. Domestic planners want confidence the network will talk to existing air-picture feeds. Potential customers in Eastern Europe and the Gulf want assurance on alliance protocols and deconfliction with their current systems.

Interest from both regions has been steady across the year as drone and missile attacks changed air-defense demand curves. Program officials speak in cautious terms about tailoring. The offer is a variety of radars, command posts, effector sets and electronic warfare nodes arranged to match geography and budget.

The company avoids making public commitments on delivery bundles until site surveys, test data and training plans align.

Export prospects will hinge on two things that are plain in the current rollout. First, the company is staging deliveries at home to bank operational data before it offers deeper packages abroad. Second, the campus and the 14-site tranche are being positioned to prove repeatable output, which most buyers care about more than brochures.

What the new campus means for Steel Dome delivery and sustainment

The hardware list delivered this week signals the network is moving out of the concept stage. With SIPER batteries starting to flow, HISAR families already known to the services, and KORKUT giving low-altitude coverage, the Turkish approach is clear. Build the layered picture through incremental deliveries while the campus brings higher-rate lines online. The radar-heavy additions show the network piece is treated as the center, not an afterthought. That usually pays off in better discrimination and fewer wasted interceptors.

Sustainment planning will matter as much as first deliveries. A campus that houses integration, test and repair can cut turnaround for modules and seeker heads that need factory refurbishment after field use. 

Having engineering and production teams within walking distance helps when fixes emerge from operational data. Buyers in export markets ask for this support on day one now, not after the first units are on a ramp. The new configuration in Ankara appears built around that reality.

Our analysis shows the $1.5 billion spend lines up with industrial policy goals, not just program needs. The investment leans into subsystems where domestic content and export paperwork often slow delivery, like detectors, RF modules and secure communications. If those bottlenecks ease, the company can scale faster without tripping on third-party licensing. That aligns with how the incentives were framed in the spring filings and with what company executives highlighted during the anniversary week.

One open question is the pacing between public targets and factory reality. Officials cite initial operations by mid-2026 for the first phase, then a steady ramp across the following quarters. That is an aggressive plan but not out of range for a firm that already fields the baseline HISAR and KORKUT families. The measure of success will be how quickly the campus can move from one-off deliveries to predictable batches, then to export-ready packages with training and spares baked in.

The Turkish program pursues a wider threat set, from UAVs to cruise missiles and aircraft, which demands more emphasis on sensing, networking and deconfliction across batteries. The new campus reinforces that focus through investment in radar integration and command systems rather than only missile airframes.

Radars and command posts will be fielded before interceptors, and training and logistics should follow that sequence. If timelines hold, Steel Dome’s layers will mature through 2026-27 and export talks will shift to configuration and delivery.

REFERENCE SOURCES

https://english.news.cn/20250828/4555e0b53f1a4e19ba25d54274e17f3e/c.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-defence-company-aselsan-build-15-billion-technology-base-double-capacity-2025-08-27/

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/08/turkeys-1-5b-steel-dome-hub-envisioned-as-europes-largest-air-defense-facility/

https://apnews.com/article/5775dac0c3c8461478937bf32dccb398

https://www.aselsan.com/en/investor-relations/market-disclosures/detail/563/receiving-project-based-investment-incentive-super-incentive

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/03/turkeys-aselsan-receives-616-million-investment-for-steel-dome-related-tech-facilities/

https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/breaking-news-tuerkiye-activates-aselsans-steel-dome-multi-layered-integrated-air-defense-system

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