Europe relies on Spanish technology for its antihypersonic missile shield

Europe has two consortiums prepared for this development, both with an important Spanish representation, whose fit is not entirely clear if both are finally accepted in the Twister project. At the moment only one has financing, the well-known Hydef program. The EU has given 110 million euros for its development. The other is the Hydis² program, and before the end of this month we will know if it will finally be able to jump on the Twister bandwagon as well.

The technical characteristics of Hydis² are still unknown, although it is known that the program contemplates the design of various interceptor concepts as well as the associated critical technologies to offer the best interception solutions for Twister.

Technology "made in Spain"

Be that as it may, Spanish technology has an important weight in both, in Hydef through SMS , a company recently created by Sener Aeroespacial, Instalaza, GMV and Escribano , plus Navantia Sistemas and INTA , which are not in SMS but are in the Hydef consortium. On the other side is Hydis² , in which there are 19 companies and 30 suppliers from 14 European countries, invited by the EU to present their proposal. Not all the member firms of this consortium have yet been officially announced, but on behalf of Spain there will be Indra , the great national systemist, and the great European missile company, MBDA , which, let us not forget, has one of its five legs (countries) in Spain (MBDA is the Airbus of missiles).

The great value of this new opponent in the fray is MBDA itself, which has its own systems such as Aster Block 1 and Block 1NT , well proven and that can be an important base for the new project. The pan-European company, the only one on the continent with the capacity to compete against the American giants, presented last June at the Paris Air Show the proposal on which they have worked for the last five years. They have named her Aquila . It cannot be forgotten either that Indra is one of the great radar scientists in the world and in the Twister program one part is the interceptor missile but another is the radar system that locates and follows the target , although the degree of participation and in which area of the national giant in the program is not yet known.

The involvement of so many countries in both projects has been valued very positively by MBDA, because of what it can mean for the entire industry on the continent. According to the CEO of the missile company, Éric Béranger : "This project offers a significant benefit , since it contributes to European resilience and technological sovereignty by improving cooperation and interoperability between EU countries." This benefit, according to Béranger, is not only strategic, but business: "This project will also contribute to strengthening the sovereign missile systems industry in Europe , maintaining and developing critical expertise, technologies and materials; thus boosting European industrial competitiveness."

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