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Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon visits Thales UK's Belfast Site

Thales has today welcomed Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon to its Belfast site where he visited the state-of-the-art high precision engineering facilities that are supporting both the UK Armed Forces and the latest developments in the UK Space industry.

With a 60 year heritage in world class engineering, the Belfast facility is the leading high technology company in Northern Ireland, employing more than 500 people in the defence and space sectors.

The site specialises in the design manufacture and integration of lightweight, mobile defence solutions, including the protection of high value assets. The utilisation of these systems to secure the 2012 Olympic Games demonstrates the criticality of this capability to the UK.
 


Thales is a trusted partner for UK armed forces and its manufacturing and investment roots in Northern Ireland can be traced back to the iconic Short Brothers in the 1930’s.
 
In recent years, Belfast has also become an increasingly important part of the Thales export strategy, winning over £400m orders in the last three years.

During his visit, Sir Michael took the opportunity to meet young employees from Thales UK’s thriving apprentice and graduate programme, which currently numbers more than 400 people.
 
The Defence Secretary was also given an update on the Belfast space electric propulsion facility which was first opened by UK astronaut Major Tim Peake. The facility will be the Thales global centre of excellence for electric propulsion systems for satellites and is gearing up for full production in 2018.
 
This cutting edge technology allows the satellite to carry larger payloads for longer periods, driving down the cost of operating the platform in space and requiring one fifth of the propellant to deliver the same mission compared to chemical-based engines.
 
The decision to open the centre in Belfast was made after an evaluation of potential sites across Europe. A combination of the heritage of precision engineering for the defence sector and support from Invest Northern Ireland, created the perfect business environment and made Belfast an obvious choice.
 
Victor Chavez, Thales UK’s CEO, said: “With 60 years of heritage, Thales is proud of Belfast’s world leading skills and our recent investment to create a global centre of excellence for space propulsion demonstrates our long term commitment to the Northern Ireland economy.  The rapid growth in exports over the past few years demonstrates both the quality of our technologies and our global competitiveness.”