Helsing unveils interceptor missiles designed to chase Russia’s fast-flying Geran drones

COLOGNE, Germany — Germany’s Helsing is offering a novel pair of air-defense missiles, plus the requisite AI software to organize intercepts, for downing fast attack drones for under $100,000 per shot, company officials said on Monday.

The offering, which goes by the name of Contra, is in testing for now but is expected to reach market readiness in the second half of 2027, Helsing CEO Gundbert Scherf told reporters during a product presentation.

Helsing’s suite is one of several newcomers on the global market that promise to solve the fundamental problem of the air defense discipline: Namely, that firing multimillion-dollar interceptors at drones costing a fraction of that amount is a losing proposition in the long run.

The product launch comes as European governments are eager to buy local equipment, fearing U.S.-made systems like the Patriot will become increasingly difficult for allies to obtain after the Iran war.

Company engineers have developed the AD-1 interceptor missile, named “Inferno” and powered by a jet engine, and the solid rocket motor-propelled AD-2, or “Ambush,” to bring down a new generation of attack drones that behave increasingly like cruise missiles, Scherf said.

The choice of propulsion systems and seeker technology on the interceptors is a direct response to the observed evolution of Russian strike drones unleashed on Ukrainian cities, he said.

Moscow’s Geran drones — based on the Iranian Shahed design — were initially propeller-based and slow, leading Ukrainian air defenders to achieve intercept rates of 90%. In recent months, however, Russia has begun producing and fielding thousands of Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones, which can fly at 400-700 kilometers per hour, causing almost half of the weapons to slip through and reach their intended targets, according to Scherf.

Helsing’s two new interceptor types are meant to complement each other, with the Inferno missile — flying at 700 km/h at a range of 20 kilometers — envisioned as the bread-and-butter countermeasure against all but the most sophisticated threats.

The Ambush, with its speed of more than twice the speed of sound, or almost 3,000 km/h, was designed to close quickly on so-called “leakers” as a last-ditch effort, a reference to threats about to make impact on the ground, said Maxwell Adams, senior product director at Helsing.

Adams said one key feature of the advertised mass-producibility of the Contra system lies in the design of the active radar seekers for the two new interceptors. Those components are made with widely available hardware, leaving prospective buyers free of any worries around Chinese-tinged supply chains or U.S. export controls, company executives said.

One Contra employment scenario, illustrated via a computer animation at the Monday product launch, envisions 20 Inferno and 40 Ambush interceptors streaking out of standard-sized shipping containers to bring down a swarm of incoming drones, with the order and distance of intercepts calculated automatically by the company’s artificial intelligence suite.

While the system will be deemed ready for sales next year, Scherf said one contract for it was already signed.

Source: www.defensenews.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.