Thales Belgium

TLDR

Thales Belgium is the Belgian subsidiary of French defense and aerospace group Thales, operating sites in Tubize, Herstal, Hasselt and Brussels that design critical information systems, Cybersecurity solutions and 70mm air-to-ground rocket systems.

Overview

Thales Belgium operates as a Belgian engineering subsidiary of the global Thales Group, with around 300 staff distributed across four sites. The Tubize facility, near Brussels, serves as a competence center for critical information systems used by customers in defense, security, Cybersecurity, aeronautics and transportation. The Herstal site, near Liege, is the historical home of Forges de Zeebrugge (FZ), now branded as Thales Belgium BL VTS, and is the world reference for 70mm (2.75") air-to-ground rocket systems including warheads, rocket motors, launchers and weapon management.

The Herstal plant alone employs around 75 people, of whom roughly 25 work in engineering and R&D. The wider Belgian organization combines electronic design, electronic production, printed circuit boards, radio frequency and microwave systems, microelectronics, lasers and electronic assemblies. The group has ramped up rocket production at Herstal in recent years to support European defense demand, with over 8 million FZ rockets in service across more than 55 countries.

Thales Belgium maintains research partnerships with KU Leuven, UMons, the Royal Military Academy, imec and Multitel, supporting recruitment and joint R&D in microelectronics, photonics and secure communications. The Belgian entity is distinct from Thales Alenia Space Belgium, the space-electronics subsidiary based in Charleroi.

Sources

• https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/countries/europe/thales-belgium
• https://fz.be/
• https://fz.be/history
• https://www.skywin.be/en/members/thales-belgium
• https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/news-centre/press-releases/thales-ramps-rocket-production-its-herstal-site-belgium-support-european