ANKARA — Company officials at Turkish aerospace giant Aselsan are slowly revealing new details about Anakara’s ambitious Steel Dome air defense project, showing off some completed components and those still in the works to journalists on a recent tour.
As in other “dome” projects abroad, the idea behind Steel Dome — or Celik Kubbe in Turkish — is to execute a “modern concept” of integrated, interconnected radar and air defense systems, Aselsan CEO Ahmet Akyol told reporters. It’s a concept Aselsan had been working on for some time, but he said has been thrown into stark relief due to recent conflicts in the region.
From the outside, the Aselsan facility here is a stern black-glass building with a gray concrete exterior, hiding much of the work that goes into making Steel Dome a reality. On the roof, two of the company’s radars monitor the site.
But while Aselsan has hosted media at the location before, this recent tour offered new glimpses into the sprawling facility that Aselsan hopes will double its production capacity after work on the new buildings are completed. (Breaking Defense accepted travel and accommodation from the Aselsan for the trip, as did other media outlets.)
During the tour, with knocking sounds in the background familiar in production facilities the world over, reporters saw a HISAR 100 medium-range air and missile defense on display in what company official referred to as an integration area of the facility, sitting near a Goksur point missile defense system.
In a bus ride around the facility, reporters viewed an outdoor display area for other Steel Dome completed components, including rotating radars highlighted by flashing red lights.
Company officials told reporters that the Steel Dome configuration consists of one large surveillance radar and a command and control station for every battalion, controlling three fire units. Each fire unit has one station for control radar for three launchers. They said that every system is a field-proven system.
Using Hakim air space command and control system, Hakim 100 radar network management system and Turan tactical military network, Aselsan officials said Steel Dome’s backbone will be T-link, which is tactical data-link specifically for Turkey’s air defense systems. Company officials said that Steel Dome uses high-powered AI-based system to support decision making.
Each piece is meant to play a part in keeping Turkish skies safe — and potentially the skies of international customers. In July, Akyol said Steel Dome could be co-produced with foreign buyers, and during this more recent tour he noted that interest in air defense systems has only risen, especially since Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in the heart of the Qatari capital of Doha.
While Steel Dome is easily among Aselsan’s biggest projects, the company works in six main domains: integrated defense system technologies, radar and electronic warfare, communication and information technologies, microelectronics and electro-optics, avionics and guidance systems technologies, and transportation, security energy and healthcare.
The tour also included a briefing on other Aselsan projects, including what was a quick glimpse of a stand-off jammer aircraft, according to a slide presentation. Among the projects highlighted were Aselsan’s radars and payloads integrated on Baykar’s Akinci UAV, payloads expected to be integrated onto KAAN, the Turkish fifth-generation fighter jet, along with the firm’s platforms integrated on-board the Turkish satellite Turksat 6A.
Company officials also said Aselsan is looking to expand abroad. Akyol revealed that the firm plans to open a new design office in Saudi Arabia dedicated for radar, electronic warfare and air defense systems by next year.
Other company officials said the firm plans to increase its maintenance, repair and operations centers globally, to ensure support for their systems abroad. The company already has affiliates in 24 countries, the officials said.