LUNA NG/HUSAR Drone Receives Provisional Type Approval From the Bundeswehr Aviation Authority
Bremen, 1 September 2026
Key points
- The Luftfahrtamt der Bundeswehr (LufABw) granted a provisional Musterzulassung — provisional type approval — for Rheinmetall's LUNA NG/HUSAR reconnaissance drone
- Approval follows about 150 flights and 200 hours flown under civil operating permits
- The certificate lets the Bundeswehr fly HUSAR for training and testing on its own authority, in restricted airspace over populated territory
- Mike Schmidt, chief executive of Rheinmetall's Air Unmanned Space unit: "Certification is carried out according to the same standards as for large aircraft, such as an A320"
- The release states no quantity, no unit-fielding date, and does not say whether the approval covers beyond-visual-line-of-sight or night operations
Rheinmetall's LUNA NG/HUSAR reconnaissance drone received a provisional type approval from the Bundeswehr's own aviation authority on 1 September, after roughly 150 flights and 200 hours logged under civil permits — a military certificate that lets the system fly in restricted airspace without a civil authority's sign-off.
The Luftfahrtamt der Bundeswehr's provisional Musterzulassung shifts HUSAR from civil-permit flying to military-authority flying: training and testing can now proceed under the Bundeswehr's own certification, integrated into regular restricted airspace over populated territory, rather than under the civil permits that carried the roughly 150 flights and 200 hours behind this approval. Schmidt's comparison to A320 certification standards is the release's own framing of the bar cleared, quoted here rather than adopted as this dispatch's characterisation of the process.
What the release does not say carries as much weight as what it does: no quantity ordered or planned, no date for fielding to operational units, and no statement on whether the approval extends to beyond-visual-line-of-sight flight or night operations — gaps a provisional certificate, by definition, leaves for a fuller type approval to close.
A provisional certificate converts test-programme hours into an operating authority, not into a contract. Signal No. 136 logged the approval as a procedural gate cleared rather than a fielding decision made — what follows is either a full Musterzulassung or a unit-quantity order, and the release dates neither.
