A group of leading European defense companies has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to establish the Bliksem EXO Consortium, a multinational industrial partnership that will develop a sovereign European exo-atmospheric interceptor designed to counter medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n
The agreement was signed by Airbus Defence and Space, Destinus, MBDA Deutschland, Safran Electronics & Defense, and Thales during the inaugural meeting of the anti-ballistic coalition at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris. The signing took place in the presence of Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten.<\/p>\n
Bliksem EXO is being developed as Europe’s upper-layer missile defense capability, designed to intercept medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, including Oreshnik-class systems, during the midcourse phase of flight above the atmosphere using hit-to-kill technology without an explosive warhead.<\/p>\n
The consortium said the system is intended to complement existing and planned lower-layer European air and missile defense systems, creating a layered defense architecture while remaining interoperable with NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) and supporting the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI).<\/p>\n
Under the planned industrial structure, Destinus will serve as consortium lead and system integrator while developing the exo-atmospheric kill vehicle. MBDA Deutschland will provide the interceptor booster, launcher and canister, Safran Electronics & Defense will develop the seeker and guidance systems, Airbus Defence and Space will be responsible for command-and-control and battle management, and Thales will supply radar and sensor systems.<\/p>\n
The companies also said the program will incorporate operational lessons from Ukraine’s experience in countering large-scale missile and air attacks, subject to applicable export control and security requirements.<\/p>\n
The partners intend to finalize a binding consortium agreement within three months. Joint engineering work is scheduled to begin in August 2026, with an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle test in space planned for 2027.<\/p>\n
According to Destinus CEO Mikhail Kokorich, the program is intended to close a critical gap in Europe’s missile defense architecture by providing a sovereign upper-layer interceptor capability against medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of leading European defense companies has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to establish the Bliksem EXO Consortium, a multinational industrial partnership that will develop a sovereign European exo-atmospheric interceptor designed to counter medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The agreement was signed by Airbus Defence and Space, Destinus, MBDA Deutschland, Safran Electronics & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":427224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56985,4127,58726,4509,3847,5073,6011,4353],"tags":[59159,64063,63711,59004,59212,59171],"class_list":["post-427223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus-en","category-all-news","category-defense-industry","category-headlines-en-tr","category-mbda-en","category-safran-en","category-space","category-thales-en","tag-airbus","tag-bliksem-exo","tag-destinus-en","tag-mbda","tag-safran","tag-thales-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defensehere.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}