Helsing Hands BAAINBw the MissionOSBw Source Code for Germany's CFSN Uncrewed Combat-Air Project

Mission systems have mostly been closed designs, Helsing says, so each new sensor or algorithm meant months of integration work. MissionOSBw instead defines the infrastructure and interfaces through which other suppliers' modules plug in, following the Modular Open Systems Approach, and BAAINBw and the Bundeswehr may reuse, adapt and extend it for future weapon systems without depending on one vendor. Robert Fink, Helsing's chief technology officer, called the handover "Software Defined Defence in practice". What has been delivered is a first release. No flight date has been given for the two aircraft, and neither Helsing nor the ministry has named a firm other than the consortium members that will write modules for the software.

Ownership of the mission software was one of the two points FCAS broke down on, and on its national track Berlin has taken it from the first release. The Franco-German fighter collapsed in June over leadership and intellectual property. CFSN, as Signal No. 92 reported when the award was being prepared, is an open reference architecture for uncrewed combat aircraft and remote carriers; the handover makes the state, not the contractor, the owner of the layer every other supplier has to write to. That is a claim about rights, and it will be tested by use: the first CFSN module delivered by a company other than Helsing. The cost is less settled than the code. A figure of more than EUR 220 million and one of about EUR 580 million are both in circulation, and until the ministry states which covers what, the project's only public deliverable is the software, at a price known to within a factor of two and a half.