Airbus performs successful flight tests with Combat Cloud Digital Infrastructure

Airbus Defence and Space has successfully carried out initial flight trials of its Combat Cloud Digital Infrastructure, codenamed ‘Goose’, the company announced on 30 June 2025.

The main objective of the test flights, which took place in Andoya, Norway, between 10-13 June 2025, was to evaluate the functionality of the Combat Cloud Digital Infrastructure in realistic conditions. The trials are the first in a series aimed at validating Airbus’s Combat Cloud Digital Infrastructure, which enables cross-platform operation between different systems, including numerous air platforms, and will be an essential part of the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

The flights followed a short, three-month validation period in which mission applications were developed using the Combat Cloud Software Development Kit (CC SDK). The CC SDK replicates the Combat Cloud Digital Infrastructure, decoupling mission applications from platform services. It also minimises manual airworthiness certification procedures.

A jet-powered Airbus DT25 drone, equipped with the Combat Cloud infrastructure, ran various mission applications during the test flights, including advanced health monitoring apps for the air platform focusing on predictive maintenance. While the health monitoring apps were used for evaluation, other mission applications can easily operate on the same digital infrastructure. This is made possible by using standardised application programming interfaces (APIs) and secure connectivity between flying assets. During each 60-minute flight, aircraft and sensor data were registered and published via the Combat Cloud, forming what Airbus termed a “data mesh at the tactical edge”. Through this tactical data mesh various users, both on the ground and in the air, were able to subscribe to critical information and retrieve prioritised gigabytes of data.

“The flight campaign in Norway represents a key milestone in advancing multi-domain operations,” Harald Mannheim, managing director of Airbus Defence and Space in Germany, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “Through collaboration with end users, partners and experts, we are integrating both existing and new systems to enhance operational capability. Airbus’ investment in the Combat Cloud highlights our commitment to providing European armed forces with the software-defined and AI-powered connectivity they need across the different domains: land, air, sea, space and cyber.”

The trials substantiate Airbus’s approach to create a software-defined capability, the Combat Cloud, that allows military forces to operate seamlessly across all military.

These trials follow Airbus’s recent launch of the Multiplatform Autonomous Reconfigurable and Secure (MARS) Mission System, which integrates the wide portfolio of mission functions onto an open and modular architecture, designed for autonomy and teaming between crewed and uncrewed platforms. The Combat Cloud digital infrastructure is a key constituent of that framework, providing information centricity across all platforms engaged in missions involving airborne assets.

The Combat Cloud is designed to ensure communication for all needs of military forces even in denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited-communication environments. Further validations also confirmed the system’s ability to load and execute mission applications while meeting airworthiness standards.

Airbus stated that the successful Goose flight tests “confirm Airbus’s commitment to delivering combat-ready solutions [for FCAS] well ahead of 2040” and “underscore Airbus’s progress in FCAS and its commitment to enabling multi-domain operations”.