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.
 

OCCAR-EA has placed two contracts with a consortium composed of Airbus Helicopters Tiger, Thales AVS and MBDA,  on behalf of the French, German and Spanish Armament agencies, DGA, BAAINBw and DGAM. They aim to de-risk the obsolescence treatment of the current Tiger helicopters, as well as the implementation of new capabilities.