Paris/France 9-13 December, 2024 -
The Solution Space Review (SSR) meetings, between the consortium coordinator –
MBDA -, the Participating States (DE, FR, IT and NL) and OCCAR, took place to
conclude this first programme milestone.
Since the contracts’ signatures
on the 15th of May 2024, the ramp-up phase was dedicated to settle
the initial set of threat scenarios, concepts and interception strategies,
while collecting the Participating States’ customer needs, missions and establishing
a Concept of Operations.
Under the coordination of MBDA,
the reference aeronautical institutions (TNO, ONERA and CIRA) have initiated
the definition of threats set with associated performance levels. By way of four
dedicated workshops, MBDA has captured the Participating States’ Weapon System
constraints, interfaces and roadmaps, including external early warning and
tracking sensors layers.
In parallel, the Industrial
consortium has identified and assessed different possible concepts and variants
of hypersonic threats interceptors, named Solution Space, structured
around two interception strategies: in-dive or in-glide. For each concept, a high-level
weapon system functional and physical architecture was defined with specific
highlights on aerodynamics, propulsion, airframe design, target acquisition and
tracking, engagement planning, trajectory optimisation and terminal phase
segment.
Based on the evaluation criteria converged between HYDIS Participating
States, such as the effector performance against the threat set, the weapon
system resilience, the launching platform integrability or the affordability
and weapon system in service date, the Industry coordinator managed to
prioritize the different possible interceptor’s concepts architectures.
The validation
of this important milestone now enables the HYDIS programme to enter into the
next phase of the funnel approach, where deeper technological maturations of
the Solution Space will be performed that will enable progressively to discard
the least promising architectures.
“The European Hypersonic Defence Interceptor System” (HYDIS) is a project
co-funded by the European Union, under the European Defence Fund, and by four Participating
States (PSs) which are France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. OCCAR has
been entrusted by the European Commission (EC) for the indirect management of
the action by the signature of a Contribution Agreement. OCCAR, as Contracting
Authority, has concluded a contract with the HYDIS consortium to implement the
programme, on behalf of EU and the Member States.
Co-funded by the
European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s)
only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European
Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held
responsible for them.
