The contest is being run through the agency’s Hub for European Defence Innovation. It is intended to generate comparable evidence on emerging European loitering-munition capabilities.
The second stage will take place at the Santa Margarida Military Training Area from 28 September to 9 October 2026. It will form part of the EDA’s Operational Experimentation Campaign 2026 and the Portuguese Army’s ARTEX26 activities.
The campaign will assess complete systems across the precision-strike mission cycle. Testing will cover mission planning, launch, target detection, engagement and post-strike assessment.
Evaluators will examine performance, resilience, reliability, safety and operational suitability. Systems will operate under realistic, degraded and contested conditions.
Destinus will demonstrate a complete loitering-munition system developed and manufactured in Europe. The company said the system has gained operational experience in demanding environments.
The selection followed an assessment of technical proposals submitted by applicants from participating European Union member states. Destinus develops and manufactures strike missile and interceptor systems in Europe.
Results from the second stage are scheduled to be announced at the European Defence Agency’s annual conference in early 2027. The trials will determine how the competing systems perform under a common operational assessment framework.
