Germany has joined five other member-states of the European Union in an ambitious project that will deploy the world's first defense system against Russian hypersonic missiles by 2030.
It's signed on as a participant country to develop TWISTER, or the "Timely Warning and Interception with Space-based TheatER surveillance."
The TWISTER consortium now consists of France, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. It advances the EU's "self-standing ability to contribute to NATO Ballistic-Missile Defense," according to the Council of the European Union.
The council Nov. 12, 2019 adopted a joint defense project aimed at strengthening the EU's early missile threat warning capability and its ability to destroy Russian missiles.
It adopted an updated list of 13 joint defense projects, including TWISTER, covering space, cybersecurity, biological defense, chemical defense and space. This brings to 47 the total number of projects undertaken under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) framework.
"The spectrum of threats on the European territory is evolving toward more complex and evolving air threats, notably in the missile domain," said the council about TWISTER.
"The project, therefore, aims at strengthening the ability of Europeans to better detect, track and counter these threats through a combination of enhanced capabilities for space-based early warning and endo-atmospheric interceptors."
TWISTER will deploy a space-based, early-warning sensor network and an interceptor moving at a velocity of more than Mach 5 (6,000 km/h) at an altitude up to 100 kilometers by 2030.
European missile-maker MBDA, which is building the interceptor, envisions a new "endo-atmospheric interceptor [that] will address a wide range of threats, including maneuvering ballistic missiles with intermediate ranges, hypersonic or high-supersonic cruise missiles, hypersonic gliders, anti-ship missiles and more conventional targets such as next-generation fighter aircraft."
The German Ministry of Defense said the objectives of TWISTER "align with German interests." German officials believe a complementary research effort spearheaded by the European Defense Industrial Development Program will help boost the project.
German defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer emphasized the need for Germany to have a capability against hypersonic missiles at a recent speech at the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg.
