In December  2008, six major European States signed their ESSOR Technical Arrangement and appointed OCCAR as the Contracting Authority,

and six prime European industries signed their ESSOR Shareholders Agreement and founded todays’ a4ESSOR, and all together signed the ESSOR Contract and gave birth to the ESSOR Program.

Another major milestone in the European Medium Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (MALE RPAS) programme was attained with the achievement of the System Preliminary Design Review on November 22nd.

At today’s OCCAR-EDA bilateral in Bonn, OCCAR Director Arturo Alfonso-Meiriño and the Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency, Jorge Domecq, have exchanged letters describing the role of the EDA in support of the ESSOR Programme.
 

The first MMF aircraft took off for the first time into the clear and cold skies of Madrid on Wednesday 28 November 2018. This is the first MMF airplane fully configured as an MRTT first flight, after completion of the production phase at the Airbus DS facilities in Getafe.