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Defense #defense · Europe/France/Germany/Spain February 20, 2026

Europe's Sixth-Gen Fighter Dream Quietly Dies on the Runway

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Military satellite in orbit above Earth
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Europe's Sixth-Gen Fighter Dream Quietly Dies on the Runway

The Program That Wouldn't Stay Dead Is Finally Flatlined

Europe's Future Combat Air System (FCAS)—a sprawling, multibillion-euro effort to build a next-generation fighter jet across France, Germany, and Spain—appears to have entered its terminal phase. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's comments this week, stating bluntly that Berlin's military needs differ fundamentally from Paris's nuclear-armed, carrier-capable requirements, have prompted European defense officials to finally call what many have privately known for months: the program is effectively dead.

"SCAF is dead," Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken posted on X, using the French acronym for the jet. "There will be no Franco-German sixth-generation fighter jet." Belgium had been an official observer, eyeing potential entry into the program—a position now under reassessment.

A Political Project on Life Support

The FCAS initiative, formally launched in 2017, represented an ambitious attempt at European industrial cooperation on a flagship defense program. The sixth-generation fighter was meant to be the centerpiece of a broader combat system that also included new weapons, autonomous drone wingmen, and a networked "combat cloud" communications architecture. For roughly a decade, FCAS symbolized European strategic ambition in advanced aerospace.

But beneath the political rhetoric lay irreconcilable industrial tensions. Germany's Airbus and France's Dassault Aviation have clashed repeatedly over program leadership and work-sharing arrangements. According to Paul Lever, former British ambassador to Germany, "Dassault wants a share of the work that is grossly disproportionate, and [CEO Eric Trappier] is unwilling to pass on secret information about the engineering aspects." The financial picture only worsened: costs ballooned, timelines slipped, and both nations' military requirements drifted further apart.

Merz's latest intervention is less a sudden death than a final acknowledgment. Paul Taylor, senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre think tank, compared the collapse to "a very slow motion strip tease." He noted that Franco-German political projects are notoriously difficult to kill outright—Europe will likely "let it go without a funeral," allowing other bilateral initiatives to supersede it quietly.

The Likely Endgame: Two Fighters Instead of One

Industry sources now openly discuss a restructured approach: abandoning the joint sixth-generation fighter in favor of two distinct national or bilateral programs. Germany and Spain—both industrially aligned with Airbus—could pursue one track, while France, leveraging Dassault's proven export success with the Rafale, moves forward independently. Such an arrangement would preserve some FCAS infrastructure, particularly the "combat cloud" network technology that both nations invested in.

France's position remains diplomatically muted. The Élysée Palace had not officially responded to Merz's comments at press time, a notable silence given that French President Emmanuel Macron had championed FCAS as a cornerstone of European strategic autonomy. However, France's focus may now pivot toward expanding Rafale exports—a deal for 114 aircraft to India is reportedly in final stages—making an independent path less economically painful.

What This Means for European Air Power

The collapse of FCAS creates immediate questions about European next-generation fighter strategy. The British-Japanese-Italian GCAP program now stands as Europe's primary competing next-gen effort, though skepticism remains about whether the continent can realistically support multiple sixth-generation fighter programs simultaneously. Belgium, having invested political capital as an observer, will now need to choose between GCAP, independent national solutions, or continued reliance on American F-35s.

What to watch: Whether Germany formally announces exit from the NGF portion of FCAS, and whether France accelerates Rafale domestic upgrades as Plan B. The symbolic end of a decade-long Franco-German aerospace partnership will reverberate across European defense planning for years.

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Think of it like...

FCAS was a multibillion-dollar bet—imagine pooling the aerospace budgets of France, Germany, and Spain into a single fighter jet. That's the scale of what's now collapsing.

Related Entities

Emmanuel Macron·person
Friedrich Merz·person
Theo Francken·person
Eric Trappier·person
Paul Lever·person
Dassault Aviation·company
Airbus·company
European Policy Centre·facility
FCAS (Future Combat Air System)·vehicle
SCAF (Systeme de Combat Aerien Futur)·vehicle
NGF (New Generation Fighter)·vehicle
GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme)·vehicle
France·agency
Germany·agency
Spain·agency
Belgium·agency
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Image for: NASA's Twin Spacecraft Will Map Mars' Atmospheric Death
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Image for: NASA races to fix Moon rocket before April launch window
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Space Weather4 days ago

ESA captures 'ring of fire' eclipse from space in ultraviolet light

ESA's Proba-2 Captures Rare Annular Eclipse From Above Atmosphere On February 17, 2026, the European Space Agency's Proba-2 satellite achieved what ground-based observatories cannot: a crisp, unobstructed view of an annular solar eclipse from space. The spacecraft captured the event in extreme ultraviolet light, revealing the Sun's corona—its wispy, million-degree outer atmosphere—with unprecedented clarity. Unlike observers on Earth, who watched the Moon form a brilliant "ring of fire" across the Sun's disk, Proba-2 documented the eclipse free from atmospheric distortion, providing scientists with raw data on solar behavior that could reshape how we prepare for space weather threats to critical infrastructure. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between Earth and Sun but appears too small to completely block our star. This happens because the Moon sits farther along its elliptical orbit, making it smaller in the sky than the Sun. The result is a glowing ring—the photosphere—visible around the Moon's silhouette. While dramatic from Earth, the real scientific payoff comes from space. Proba-2's SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System) imager operates at 17.4 nanometers, a wavelength that penetrates the Sun's corona to reveal solar flares and coronal mass ejections in detail. Ground-based telescopes cannot access this information because Earth's atmosphere absorbs ultraviolet light. Why This Matters Now The timing of Proba-2's observations arrives as space agencies worldwide confront an uncomfortable reality: we are ill-equipped for the next major solar storm. In May 2024, a geomagnetic storm rated G4 (severe) disrupted farming equipment GPS across North America and degraded power grid stability. Scientists warn that a Carrington Event-scale storm—possible within the next 12 years—could cause trillions in economic damage. By monitoring the Sun's corona during eclipses, researchers can refine models that predict when and where coronal mass ejections will hit Earth. Proba-2's 2026 data feeds directly into this effort. Proba-2, launched in 2009, represents a lean approach to solar science. The satellite is small—fitting inside a compact spacecraft architecture—yet bristles with sophisticated instrumentation. Its longevity (now in its 15th year of operation) reflects solid engineering and ESA's commitment to sustained solar monitoring. The SWAP imager has been the backbone of ultraviolet solar research for over a decade, making the February 2026 eclipse observations a natural extension of an already robust mission. The Broader Context Solar eclipse observations from space have accelerated scientific discovery since NASA's Skylab era in the 1970s. Modern satellites like Proba-2, SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory), and Japan's Hinode have transformed our understanding of solar dynamics. The February 2026 eclipse is part of a constellation of upcoming celestial events: a total solar eclipse crosses Greenland, Iceland, and Spain on August 12, 2026, followed by another total eclipse over North Africa and the Middle East on August 2, 2027. Each event offers opportunities for both space-based and terrestrial science campaigns. What's Next The data Proba-2 collected during the February 2026 annular eclipse will be processed and released to the broader scientific community, likely yielding dozens of peer-reviewed papers on solar corona dynamics and heating mechanisms. Meanwhile, space agencies are preparing deployment of next-generation solar observatories—including ESA's upcoming Solar Orbiter deep-dive missions and NASA's planned solar probe fleet—designed to get even closer to the Sun and capture phenomena invisible to current instruments. The 2026 eclipse serves as both a capstone to a generation of solar science and a proving ground for the observational strategies that will guide the next decade of heliophysics research.

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