ISTANBUL — Turkiye unveiled a prototype intercontinental ballistic missile named Yildirimhan on Tuesday at the SAHA 2026 Defence and Aerospace Exhibition at the Istanbul Expo Centre. The missile, whose name means "lightning" in Turkish, was developed by the Defence Ministry's research and development centre.

The Yildirimhan has a range of 6,000 km (3,278 miles) and a maximum speed of Mach 25, placing it within the intercontinental class. Ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 5,500 km (roughly 3,418 miles) are classed as intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to the Federation of American Scientists. If launched from Turkiye, the missile will be able to hit targets across Europe, Africa and Asia.

The weapon has four rocket propulsion engines, is fuelled by liquid nitrogen tetroxide and carries a warhead with a payload capacity of 3,000 kg. Turkiye has not begun production of the missile, and a future test facility base in Somalia has not yet been constructed.

Defence Minister Yasar Guler said at the exhibition: "In this era where economic cost has become an asymmetric weapon, Turkiye offers its allies not only weapon systems but also technology and a sustainable security economy."

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, regional director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, questioned the strategic rationale for the system. "In my view, Turkiye does not need ICBMs to deter any immediate security threat it is facing. Therefore, it is not the ICBM, but the capability to produce it that is important for Turkiye," he said.

Burak Yildirim, a security and defence analyst, linked the project to Turkiye's broader space ambitions, including the Delta-V programme, a civil and commercial initiative aiming to place Turkish satellites into orbit using the country's own rockets. "The physics of reaching orbit and the physics of intercontinental ballistic trajectory are closely related; the technology overlaps," he said. "In that sense, an ICBM-class capability is a natural if politically consequential-derivative of a serious space programme."

Yildirim also cautioned about the current state of the programme. "That said, we should be precise about what was actually unveiled at SAHA 2026: a concept, presented in mock-up form," he said. "There are no confirmed flight tests, technical specifications remain limited, and critical subsystems have not been publicly accounted for in any consistent detail."