Teams from the French Ministry of Defence (MoD), Dassault Aviation, and MBDA carried out the first successful guided firing of the long-range Meteor missile from a Rafale combat aircraft against an air target on April 28, the ministry said.
The missile was launched from the DGA’s Cazaux Fight Test Centre near Bordeaux, France through the secured zone of the DGA Essais de Missiles in Biscarosse, also near Bordeaux, France. This test came after earlier missile separation trials in 2013 and 2014.
“This firing represents an important milestone in the integration of Meteor onto the Rafale in line with the development of the aircraft in its next F3-R standard,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Meteor missile has a throttleable ramjet motor, a ‘fire and forget’ mode, and is intended for very long Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air defense operations. The RBE2 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar on the Rafale allows the Meteor to intercept targets at very long range, the ministry said.
The French Ministry of Defense highlighted the Meteor is the result of a federated cooperation program among France, German, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom launched in 2003. It enables the consolidation of the European defense industry and technology base associated with the missile sector.
MBDA UK is the prime industrial contractor for the Meteor program, partnered with MBDA France, MBDA Italy, Saab AB, MBDA Germany’s Bayern-Chemie, and Spain’s INMIZE.
MBDA is jointly held by Airbus (37.5 percent), BAE Systems (37.5 percent), and Finmeccanica (25 percent). The first Meteor missiles are set to be delivered in 2018 to equip Rafales in the French Air Force and Navy.