12 March 2026 Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani announced that, that the first field test of the architecture of Michelangelo's "protective dome" will take place in Ukraine until the end 2026 year.
For reference: Leonardo S.p.A. is a leading Italian engineering holding, one of the world's largest players in the aerospace industry sectors, defense and security. It designs and manufactures helicopters, aircraft, BpLA, defense systems, electronics, as well as space technology.
Michelangelo, which was first reported in November 2025 year, is Leonardo's proposal for an integrated multi-domain framework, covering air, terrestrial, marine and outer space. The system is designed as an interoperable and interconnected architecture, that combines platforms and sensors to detect and track risks and threats.
During the briefing, Chingolani described the project schedule, which includes the launch of Leonardo's Space Guardian satellite group at the end 2027 and 2028 years. The grouping should become fully operational in 2029 year and begin integration with other tracking and early warning systems starting from 2030 year. Space Guardian is Leonardo's first proprietary Earth observation satellite array. It will consist of 20 multi-sensor satellites, launched by two parties between the end 2027 and 2028 for years. The first batch will include nine satellites: six satellites with a synthesized radar aperture, two very high resolution optical sensor satellites and one communications satellite, equipped with optical intersatellite communication channels. The satellites will be placed in low Earth orbit at high altitude 520 km. The grouping will interact with other components of Michelangelo's architecture, as well as with European programs of satellite groups, such as Copernicus, and Italian IRIDE and COSMO-SkyMed.
According to Leonardo's estimates, the dome must “open 21 billion euros of new business opportunities in the next decade", of which 6 billion falls on the period 2026–2030 and 15 billion — for 2031–2035.
Source: https://spacenews.com