The purpose of the CDR is to verify that the Eurodrone design complies with 2,000 requirements set by the partner nations before advancing to the next phase of the programme. Once confirmed, the project will move into production of three prototypes that will undergo extensive flight testing in France, Spain and Italy.
By the end of 2025, the design phase of the Eurodrone will be completed, and prototype production will begin. The programme foresees assembly of a total of 60 aircraft at the Final Assembly Line in Manching, Germany, with sub-system production distributed across all four participating countries, ensuring balanced industrial participation.
The Eurodrone has been described as offering capabilities beyond those of its competitors, including state-of-the-art sensors, an advanced communication and dissemination architecture, certification by design and exceptional endurance in a wide range of operational configurations. OCCAR emphasised that the entirely European design is ITAR-free and supported by a fully European supply chain, guaranteeing strategic sovereignty for the nations involved.
Eurodrone is a twin-engine Large Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial System with a maximum take-off weight of 12 tonnes and a mission payload capacity of 2,300 kilograms. It is designed as a multi-mission unmanned system certified to operate in non-segregated civil airspace, intended to perform a wide spectrum of missions including Anti-Submarine Warfare, Anti-Surface Warfare, early warning, large area surveillance, fleet protection, infrastructure protection and signals intelligence.
The MALE RPAS (Eurodrone) Programme, launched in 2016, has already passed several key milestones. A Definition Study concluded in 2018 with the System Requirement Review and the System Preliminary Design Review. Between 2019 and 2021, negotiations led to a comprehensive contract signed on 24 February 2022 covering development, production and initial in-service support for 20 systems, amounting to 60 aircraft and 40 ground control stations, with Airbus Defence and Space GmbH as prime contractor alongside Airbus Defence and Space S.A.U, Leonardo and Dassault Aviation as major sub-contractors.
In parallel, the programme received financial support in 2021 under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), which led OCCAR to negotiate and sign a Grant Agreement with its industrial partners. The Eurodrone is expected to become a central enabler for future European defence operations and a key pillar of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), improving collaborative combat capabilities among European nations.
