Production Engineer - Mechatronic Systems

Helsing unveils Contra air defence system and two interceptor missiles. 26 October 2026 - 19:46 According to Helsing, the company has introduced the Contra air defence system alongside two interceptor missiles, AD-1 Inferno and AD-2 Ambush, designed to counter drone and cruise missile threats. The company said Contra uses AI-based sensor and weapon integration, while the two interceptors are being developed with radar seekers for target engagement in different operational scenarios. Helsing, the military AI company, today unveiled Contra, an AI-controlled autonomous air defence system designed to protect countries from scaled drone and missile attacks. The company also introduced two advanced interceptor missiles, AD-1 Inferno and AD-2 Ambush, designed to outmatch and outrun even the fastest jet-powered drone and cruise missile threats. According to recent intelligence reports, Russia has systematically increased its jet-powered drone and cruise missile production, with Geran-4 and Geran-5 jet drone output alone rising to 4,000 units per month. At the same time, Russia is constructing numerous additional launch sites for such drones. This brings parts of the EU within range of potential Russian attacks. Contra is designed to counter this threat. Autonomous AI-based operation allows the detection and engagement of hundreds or thousands of drone and missile threats at the same time by fusing sensors and effectors into a single air picture. With Helsing's Altra C2 platform as the foundation, users retain full control over decision making and prioritisation. To effectively engage large numbers of fast aerial targets, Helsing is also developing two missile interceptors with advanced radar seekers: AD-1 Inferno is a jet-powered interceptor capable of aerial loitering, swarming, and repeated re-engagements. AD-2 Ambush is a solid-rocket-motor (SRM) missile for rapid intercepts, reaching Mach 2.5 and a range of 20km+. Both systems receive mid-course guidance from Contra radar ground stations and feature an advanced onboard radar-seeker for all-weather terminal guidance. Both interceptors are container-launched. Mass production will take place at Helsing's Resilience Factories, with unit prices significantly undercutting those of existing missile interceptors. While AD-1 and AD-2 form an essential part of the Contra offering, the system is natively set up to integrate third-party hardware, such as other interceptors, cUAV lasers, cUAV guns or net-based systems, in a matter of days. Helsing is already demonstrating multiple such hardware integrations to military customers. Contra reflects Helsing's cross-domain approach: using AI and software to draw high capability from affordable, mass-producible hardware. The result is autonomous fire dominance at scale that remains under meaningful human control. Niklas Köhler, Co-Founder and President of Helsing, says: "Contra ends the air defence dilemma: slow fair-weather drones, or million-euro missiles fired at cheap, mass-produced targets. Our AI links existing sensors and effectors in real time and adds our interceptors, AD-1 and AD-2. With jet and rocket propulsion, a low-cost all-weather radar seeker, and two independent European supply chains, they deliver autonomous fire superiority up to ten kilometres high - affordable and at industrial scale."

Helsing prices jet-drone interceptors under €100,000, none before 2027. DroneXL may earn a commission when you buy through links on its site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Helsing's AD-2 Ambush rocket-powered interceptor (top) and AD-1 Inferno jet-powered interceptor, unveiled in Berlin on October 26, 2026. Photo credit: Helsing Helsing unveiled an air defense system called Contra in Berlin on Monday, along with two interceptor missiles it says will cost less than €100,000 each. The AD-1 Inferno is jet-powered and built to loiter. The AD-2 Ambush rides a solid rocket motor. Both are aimed at the jet-powered Geran drones Russia now launches at Ukraine by the thousand every month. Contra is the Munich company's first air defense system. DroneXL last covered Helsing in August, when Rakuten was brokering a sale of its HX-2 strike drone to Japan's army, and in July, when it picked West Virginia for an HX-2 factory. Co-founder Gundbert Scherf told reporters on Monday that one customer, which he did not name, has already signed a contract for the Contra command system. Neither interceptor has finished flight testing. A Helsing representative at the briefing put the earliest deliveries in the second quarter of 2027. Helsing prices both missiles under €100,000 and promises 1,000 a month. Scherf put the unit price of the AD-1 and the AD-2 below €100,000 apiece and said mass production of the AD-1 means 1,000 a month. Helsing's comparison, as hartpunkt reported it, puts existing interceptor missiles at €500,000 to €4 million each, shipping in the hundreds or thousands per year. The saving, by Helsing's account, comes from an active radar seeker built from commercial off-the-shelf parts. The company says the seeker costs less than a tenth of comparable seekers and, per hartpunkt, is largely the same part in both missiles. It pairs an optical sensor with the radar, and Helsing says the radar is there because Russia times its attacks for darkness and bad weather, when camera seekers go blind. "When we say mass-producible, we mean 1,000 units per month," Scherf said, according to defence-network. Both missiles use jet engines and rocket motors Helsing developed in-house, on supply chains the company describes as free of US export restrictions and mostly European. The two missiles get separate supply chains, and both would be built in the decentralized plants Helsing calls Resilience Factories. German defense site hartpunkt reported that output would reach several thousand a month once development ends in the second half of 2027. The AD-1 loiters and re-attacks while the AD-2 sprints past Mach 2. The AD-1 Inferno is a jet-powered interceptor that tops 435 mph (700 km/h). It reaches 12 miles (20 km) and climbs above 29,500 feet (9,000 meters). The AD-2 Ambush passes Mach 2 on a solid rocket motor with the same range and ceiling, built for threats beyond the AD-1's reach. Both launch from 20-foot shipping containers, 20 AD-1s or 40 AD-2s per box, moved by truck, rail or ship. Contra's ground radars guide them mid-course and the onboard seeker takes over for the final approach. The AD-1 can loiter, fly as a swarm and come back for a second pass if it misses, and Helsing's product page places it between electric interceptor drones and legacy missiles. Niklas Köhler, Helsing's co-founder and president, told reporters the pair delivers "autonomous fire superiority at altitudes of up to 10 kilometers." Helsing's AD-1 Inferno slide from the Berlin briefing lists a top speed above 700 km/h, a ceiling above 9,000 meters and container launch in lots of 20. Image credit: Helsing The target is the drone Ukraine's intelligence service took apart in May. The GUR teardown DroneXL reported on May 26 put the Geran-4 at 310 mph (500 km/h) and 16,400 feet (5,000 meters), and said Russia built it to outrun Ukraine's $2,000 interceptor drones. Helsing says Russia now uses 4,000 Geran-4 and Geran-5 jet drones a month, and hartpunkt put their unit cost at €200,000 to €250,000. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's own count, which DroneXL cited in its September teardown story, was more than 2,730 jet-powered Shaheds launched in September, with Ukraine stopping 55 percent of them. Contra runs on Altra and has a customer before the AD-1 has flown. Contra runs on Altra, the command software Helsing uses for its HX-2 strike drone, and the first contract covers that software, not the missiles. The system fuses radar, electro-optical, infrared and acoustic sensors from any vendor, assigns each track to the best weapon and can re-task interceptors in the air. Helsing's Contra concept render shows AD-1 and AD-2 interceptors launching from shipping containers against a mass drone attack on a city. Image credit: Helsing The company says third-party guns, lasers, net launchers and interceptor drones can be plugged in through open interfaces within days, that operators set the rules of engagement, and that the system connects to SitaWare and the German army's own battle management software. It showed a video of an AD-2 test flight. The AD-1 went from concept to demonstrator in two months, Helsing said, and its first flights are due in the coming weeks. DroneXL's take. The price is a promise and the seeker is the bet. My read is that Helsing has the diagnosis right: GUR said in May that Russia built the Geran-4 to fly away from Ukraine's $2,000 interceptor drones, and a 435 mph jet with a radar nose is the correct shape of answer. But a radar seeker assembled from catalog parts that sees through fog at a tenth of the usual cost is a claim every missile house would love to make, and what Helsing showed in Berlin was a flight video, not a seeker test. I'll believe the seeker when a European army publishes a result, and until then Contra is a contract and a concept render. Ukraine is stopping 55 percent of Russia's jet Shaheds today with the interceptors it has, and Helsing's earliest delivery is the second quarter of 2027. Russia went from the propeller Geran-2 to the jet Geran-4 and Geran-5 inside a year to beat a $2,000 drone, and I expect it to change the aircraft again before Helsing fills its first container. DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read its editorial standards. Editor-in-Chief Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Founder of DroneXL.co, where he covers all drone-related news, DJI rumors and writes drone reviews, and of EVXL.co, for all electric vehicle news. Haye can be reached at haye @ dronexl.co or @hayekesteloo. Also on LinkedIn, Muck Rack, Instagram and YouTube. DroneXL reports under its editorial standards. Spotted an error? Read the corrections policy. How DroneXL uses automated tools.

Helsing unveils its own Contra air-defense system. * home * companies * industry * Helsing: group unveils its own Contra air-defense system. Defenses against drone and missile attacks are to be rapidly expanded. The armaments company Helsing is presenting its own system with new guided missiles for this purpose. 26.10.2026 - 11:33