Article Posted on : - Jun 09, 2011

The Mantis UAV which could be the basis for the new Dassault/BAE UAV.

LONDON (BNS): UK’s BAE Systems and France’s Dassault Aviation have firmed up their partnership in offering Europe the next generation unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system.

The two defence firms have announced ‘Telemos’ as the name of the programme that will deliver their joint response for the new Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS) in response to France and UK’s proposal to jointly design and build the next generation drone.

In Greek mythology, Telemos was the prophetic son of Eurymos, known for having the vision and foresight to warn Polyphemus about an attack by Odysseus, BAE said.

The joint partners will present the capabilities that underpin the Telemos programme at the Paris Air Show from June 20th-26th.

The two companies had signed a MoU earlier this year to design and build the new pilotless aircraft.

The Telemos programme will ensure that the considerable end-to-end systems capabilities of both BAE Systems and Dassault are successfully brought together to deliver a joint proposal to the UK and French Ministries of Defence for the design, development, production and support of a MALE UAS that will help safeguard the sovereign operational capability of the UK and France in the future, BAE said.

In response to France and UK’s proposal to jointly design and build the next generation UAV system, leading defence firms have teamed up to offer their respective technologies.

Besides BAE-Dassualt, the other contenders in fray for the £600 million ($952 million) programme include the joint partnership between UK’s Cobham and US’s General Atomics, and EADS which has recently tied up with Turkish Aerospace Industries.

The drone will be developed for operational intelligence and surveillance purposes. It will also have offensive capabilities, according to the UK government.