A major milestone has been reached in the European MALE RPAS (Medium Altitude Long Endurance Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) effort: The approval of the Programme Management Authorisation (PMA) by the OCCAR Board of Supervisors in November 2015 authorises the assignment of the programme to OCCAR for management purposes, with the initial participation of France, Germany, Italy and Spain. On the basis of this PMA, programme integration activities into OCCAR are now progressing at full speed. 

On 18 May 2015, France, Germany and Italy declared their intention to conduct a definition study in order to prepare the development of a European MALE RPAS. Since then, Spain has become the fourth nation to participate in the study, which is planned to last 2 years. The main purpose is to identify a set of achievable operational capabilities, to define the corresponding set of system requirements and to perform preliminary design activities to allow the launch of a potential development and production phase with minimum residual risk.