Kelluu’s Jam-Resistant Airships to Enhance NATO’s ISR Capabilities

The domain of persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) is seeing a renewed interest in Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) platforms, and NATO is taking notice. Finnish innovator Kelluu has been selected for the alliance’s ‘Rapid Adoption Service’ program, bringing its unique hydrogen-powered airships into the military fold. These platforms are designed to fill a critical capability gap between short-endurance tactical drones and high-cost manned aircraft or satellite assets. Operating for up to 12 hours, Kelluu’s propeller-driven aerostats offer a cost-effective solution for continuous monitoring of border regions and other sensitive areas. What sets this technology apart is its development environment. Based in Joensuu, close to the Russian border, Kelluu’s engineering team has designed the system from the ground up to operate in a heavily contested electronic warfare (EW) environment. This ‘free interference,’ as the company terms it, has driven the development of robust anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities, ensuring operational reliability where other platforms might fail. This inherent resilience was a key factor in its selection by NATO. The company is now planning a significant production scale-up, with an initial target of over 500 units for NATO and allied nations, and a long-term vision of 3,500 platforms. This move signals a broader acceptance of small, autonomous LTA systems as a valuable and resilient asset in modern military and civilian surveillance operations, particularly for challenging environments like the Arctic.