Missile-wielding Airbus interceptor engages one-way attack drone in test

PARIS — Airbus tested a jet-powered interceptor armed with missiles from defense startup Frankenburg Technologies to engage a one-way attack drone, with the companies trumpeting their solution as a cost-effective way of defending against such drones.

The reusable Bird of Prey interceptor drone completed its first demonstration flight at a military training area in northern Germany in a “realistic mission scenario,” the companies said in a joint statement on Monday. The interceptor autonomously searched, detected and classified a medium-sized one-way attack drone, which it then engaged with Frankenburg’s Mark I air-to-air missile.

The war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East have underscored the challenge of defending against relatively low-cost one-way munitions such as Iran’s Shahed drones, which can cost a fraction of the interceptors used to shoot them down, leaving Western militaries and defense firms scrambling to find affordable countermeasures rather than relying on scarce, high-end air-defense missiles.

“Defending against kamikaze drones is a tactical priority that urgently needs to be tackled,” said Mike Schoellhorn, the chief executive officer of Airbus Defence and Space, in a statement. He said the Airbus drone with Frankenburg’s affordable missiles is an “effective, cost-efficient interceptor, filling a crucial capability gap in today’s asymmetric conflict theaters.”

The Bird of Prey drone is based on the jet-powered Airbus Do-DT25 target drone , which has a published maximum speed of 300 knots, or 555 kilometers per hour.

The drone-missile combination makes large-scale interception economically viable, with a single reusable interceptor able to perform multiple air-to-air engagements, with an “order-of-magnitude reduction in cost per intercept,” Frankenburg said in a social-media post . Integration of its missile on the Airbus platform was completed in nine months, according to the startup.

The interceptor-drone prototype has a wingspan of 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) and a maximum takeoff weight of 160 kilograms. The drone in the test was equipped with four of Frankenburg’s Mark 1 missiles, while the operational version will be able to carry eight of the missiles, the companies said.

“This is a defining step for modern air defense,” Frankenburg CEO Kusti Salm said. “It marks the first integration of a new class of low-cost, mass-manufacturable interceptor missiles onto a drone, creating a new cost curve for air defense and enabling defense against mass aerial threats at a fundamentally different scale.”

The Frankenburg Mark 1 missile is a high subsonic, fire-and-forget missile with an engagement range of up to 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile), and its length of 65 centimeters and weight of less than 2 kilograms makes the Mark 1 the lightest guided interceptor developed to date, according to the companies. The missiles are equipped with a fragmentation warhead.

Airbus and Frankenburg plan more test flights in 2026 with a live warhead to move to “further operationalize” the system, and demonstrate its capabilities to potential customers. Bird of Prey is designed to fit into NATO’s integrated air-defense architecture via Airbus’s integrated battle-management system, the companies said.

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——空中客车公司测试了一架由国防初创公司 Frankenburg Technologies 提供的导弹驱动的喷气式拦截机，用于拦截单向攻击无人机。两家公司都宣称他们的解决方案是一种经济有效的防御此类无人机的方法。

两家公司周一在一份联合声明中表示，可重复使用的“猛禽”拦截无人机在德国北部的一个军事训练区完成了首次演示飞行，该飞行模拟了“真实任务场景”。拦截机自主搜索、探测并识别了一架中型单向攻击无人机，随后使用弗兰肯堡公司的Mark I型空空导弹将其拦截。

乌克兰战争和中东冲突凸显了防御相对低成本的一次性弹药（例如伊朗的“沙赫德”无人机）的挑战，这些弹药的成本可能只有用于击落它们的拦截弹的一小部分，这使得西方军队和国防公司不得不争相寻找价格合理的应对措施，而不是依赖稀缺的高端防空导弹。

“防御自杀式无人机袭击是一项亟待解决的战术要务，”空中客车防务与航天公司首席执行官迈克·舍尔霍恩在一份声明中表示。他指出，配备弗兰肯堡公司经济型导弹的空中客车无人机是一款“高效且经济的拦截器，填补了当今非对称冲突地区的关键能力空白”。

“猛禽”无人机以喷气式动力空客Do-DT25靶机为基础，其公布的最大速度为300节，即每小时555公里。

无人机与导弹的组合使大规模拦截在经济上可行，单个可重复使用的拦截器能够执行多次空对空拦截任务，弗兰肯堡在社交媒体上发帖称，每次拦截的成本“降低了一个数量级”。据这家初创公司称，其导弹在空客平台上的集成工作仅用了九个月就完成了。

这款拦截无人机原型机翼展2.5米（8.2英尺），最大起飞重量160公斤。测试中的无人机配备了四枚弗兰肯堡Mark 1型导弹，而作战版本将能够携带八枚导弹，两家公司表示。

“这是现代防空发展史上的一个里程碑，”弗兰肯堡公司首席执行官库斯蒂·萨​​尔姆表示。“这标志着新型低成本、可大规模生产的拦截导弹首次集成到无人机上，从而为防空创造了新的成本曲线，并使防御大规模空中威胁的能力达到了截然不同的规模。”

弗兰肯堡Mark 1型导弹是一种高亚音速、发射后不管的导弹，射程可达1.5公里（0.9英里）。据相关公司称，该导弹长度仅为65厘米，重量不足2公斤，是迄今为止研制出的最轻的制导拦截导弹。该导弹配备有破片战斗部。

空客和弗兰肯堡计划在2026年进行更多搭载实弹弹头的试飞，以“进一步实现”该系统的作战化，并向潜在客户展示其性能。两家公司表示，“猛禽”导弹系统旨在通过空客的集成作战管理系统融入北约的一体化防空体系。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。