Germany Opens National Drone Security Research Center in Cochstedt After Leipzig Airport Bomb-Drone Incident

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, Research Minister Dorothee Bär, Saxony-Anhalt Minister-President Sven Schulze, and DLR Executive Board Chair Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla inaugurated the new Drone Security Technology Center at the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) Magdeburg-Cochstedt airfield on August 18, expanding the existing National Test Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The facility, backed by over €10 million in funding and up to 40 new positions across sites in Cochstedt and Braunschweig, will develop and field-test technology to locate, identify, track, and counter unauthorized drones threatening airports, public events, and critical infrastructure under realistic conditions. The opening came roughly two weeks after a drone carrying explosives and a detonator was found near a Ukrainian Antonov Airlines cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport, a major European air-freight hub used for NATO logistics. Dobrindt called malicious drone incursions part of the 'shadow war of the 21st century' and announced the federal police's counter-drone unit would double in size, from 150 to 300 officers.