Rheinmetall’s LUNA NG drone gets German certification

Germany’s Bundeswehr Aviation Authority has granted provisional airworthiness certification to Rheinmetall’s LUNA NG unmanned reconnaissance system, the company said, clearing the German military to fly the drone independently for training and testing.

The certification marks a step toward full type certification for the aircraft, which the Bundeswehr will field under the designation HUSAR, short for Highly Efficient Unmanned System for Medium-Range Reconnaissance. Rheinmetall said the majority of required certification criteria have already been met.

The LUNA NG is certified to civil aviation safety standards rather than military-only requirements, a distinction Rheinmetall said allows the drone to fly in regular, restricted airspace rather than being confined to dedicated military training areas.

“Certification is carried out according to the same standards as for large aircraft, such as an A320,” said Mike Schmidt, CEO of the Air Unmanned Space business unit at Rheinmetall. “A particular challenge in this case was that critical components, such as the autopilot or safety-critical navigation systems, had to be developed and certified in-house. There are simply no certified systems for tactical unmanned aerial vehicles on the market.”

Rheinmetall said the drone has completed around 150 flights and roughly 200 flight hours under civil operating licenses. The first Bundeswehr pilots and verifiers have already been trained on the system, giving the German military qualified personnel to operate it independently for training and testing purposes under the new provisional certification.

The LUNA NG is designed for sustained airborne reconnaissance, target classification, and real-time detection of objects, with an endurance of more than 12 hours, according to Rheinmetall.