S225XR was a wingless, integrated rocket/ramjet powered, active radar-guided medium-range air-to-air missile concept initially proposed by a BAe Dynamics led team to meet the United Kingdom

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

's, requirement for a missile to arm

Eurofighter The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonar ...

. S225XR was the ultimate in a series of proposed developments of the BAe Dynamics

Skyflash The Skyflash, or Sky Flash in marketing material, was a medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile derived from the US AIM-7 Sparrow missile and carried by Royal Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s, Italia ...

pursued jointly by the UK and Sweden since the late 1970s. In 1978 Sweden bought the rights to Skyflash, known as Rb 71 in

Flygvapnet The Swedish Air Force ( sv, Svenska flygvapnet or just ) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. History The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the es ...

service, from BAe.Jane's Air Launched Weapons, 30 July 2006 Sweden's Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) subsequently began an independent development of Skyflash with a new active seeker, with BAe acting as a sub-contractor to Sweden's Saab Dynamics. In 1984 the FMV began renewed studies of their active seeker design, the Rb 71A, or Sky Flash 90, and the all-new wingless ramjet-powered Rb 73. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with BAe Dynamics that same year to co-operate on Rb 73 development. Studies were conducted on longer range designs with wings and datalinks, the Rb 73D/Rb 73DL. A lack of FMV funding brought the Rb 73 programme to a halt in 1987. In 1988 BAe Dynamics and Thomson-CSF (now

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard ...

) agreed to jointly fund development of a version of Skyflash with an active radar seeker. The Active Sky Flash (ASF) was to include a Thomson-CSF seeker and a new warhead developed by LFK, the guided missile division of Daimler-Benz Aerospace (

DASA ''Dasa'' ( sa, दास, Dāsa) is a Sanskrit word found in ancient Indian texts such as the '' Rigveda'' and '' Arthasastra''. It usually means "enemy" or "servant" but ''dasa'', or ''das'', also means a "servant of God", "devotee," " votary" or ...

) now known as MBDA Deutschland GmbH. Concepts progressed from the basic ASF to the agile tail-controlled ASF TC Mk. II. Prototype seekers were delivered in 1990 with air-carriage trials in 1991. Saab Dynamics continued to refine the Rb 73 design using company funds and renewed links were established with BAe Dynamics, to meet the emerging requirement to arm the RAF's Eurofighters. As Eurofighter became the driver behind the missile's development, BAe took charge of the programme. ASF was terminated in 1992 to be replaced by a new wingless concept known as S225X, the name deriving from the internal

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal ...

of the BAe project manager's office at Stevenage. S225X was first unveiled at the 1992 Farnborough Air Show. GEC-Marconi Dynamics and Alenia Difesa joined the programme in 1993. In 1994 a ramjet powered version, known as S225XR, was proposed in response to the UK requirement for a future medium-range air-to-air missile for Eurofighter. This team became part of the European group which eventually won the competition with

Meteor A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as mic ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:S225xr Ramjet engines Air-to-air missiles of the United Kingdom Air-to-air missiles of Sweden