Initial Concept Review Successfully Finalised for HYDIS

After the first contractual milestone, the Solution Space Review successfully held on December 2024, the HYDIS Concept Phase related to the future interceptor concept aimed at counter-acting the current and emerging hypersonic threats, done alongside the Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR - representing the Granting Authority on behalf of the European Commission and the Contracting Authority representing the Participating States), achieved another key milestone with the Initial Concept Review   

With the Steering Committee held on October 24th 2025 at OCCAR offices in Montrouge, HYDIS Consortium, led by MBDA, marked a notable achievement along the path of the current Concept Phase, with the completion of the Initial Concepts Review (ICR).

The HYDIS Consortium worked successfully on the down-selection and assessment of the two most promising interceptor concepts, starting from the set of options brought forward from the Solution Space Review. Drawing on the Concept Robustness analysis completed in the first half of 2025, the HYDIS Team has delivered to the participating states DE, FR, IT and NL (*) a comprehensive technical data package. This package includes a detailed value analysis of candidate interceptor concepts, evaluated against the jointly agreed CONOPS and metrics. The project has since converged on a propulsive architecture for both the initial acceleration and mid-course phases and is now advancing investigations into Kill Vehicle designs.

Critical to the project’s success and the timely achievement of all planned milestones is the early and proactive engagement of the participating states during the Concept Phase. This has been facilitated through a series of workshops focused on discussing the information provided by the Nations, enabling a consistent and timely alignment on common user requirements. This process will be finalized in early 2026 during the Mission Definition Review.

With the ICR milestone achievement, the Project has now entered the third step of the Concept Phase to further mature and assess the interceptor design and allow the down-selection to one concept at the Final Concept Review in 2026. Such progress is the result of the successful cooperation of the 19 Partners of the HYDIS consortium that is pushing forward the technical elements necessary to get to the new interceptor solution.