Articles for "Disaster relief"

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Aeronautics | 11. July 2018 | posted by Johann Dauer

Unmanned helicopter superARTIS delivered humanitarian goods

Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)
Preparation of the next flight

During the second week of the pilot operation in the Dominican Republic, the superARTIS team performed different humanitarian delivery missions together with Wings for Aid and the World Food Programme. The flights took place in an area called 'Bajo Yuna', which suffers from frequent flooding and related 'last mile' delivery problems. These flight tests are one of the founding stones to connect DLR's UAS projects with applications in humanitarian technology. read more

Aeronautics | 28. June 2018 | posted by Johann Dauer

Helicopter UAS superARTIS on a humanitarian mission in the Dominican Republic

Credit: © DLR
Discussions with local stakeholders such as the Red Cross and identifying possible missions for the simulation

Last weekend, a team from Wings for Aid and DLR travelled to the Dominican Republic (DR), to test Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for humanitarian aid. They planned to deliver disposable boxes carrying 20 kilograms of emergency goods and drop them safely at their destination using DLR’s helicopter UAS, superARTIS. read more

Security | 31. March 2011

The final stage in the construction of the German-Indonesian tsunami early warning system

On 26 December 2004, a devastating tsunami destroyed large parts of the coastline of the Indian Ocean. It is estimated that 250,000 people lost their lives because there was no early warning system. Shortly afterwards, the German government decided to spend 50 million Euros to develop a tsunami early warning system in Indonesia, the most severely affected country. Scientists from major German research centres presented innovative concepts for such a system to the political decision makers. Convinced of the feasibility of the proposal, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung; BMBF) decided to support the project, now named the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS), as a joint development led by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum; GFZ) in Potsdam. read more

Security | 29. November 2010

DLR's presence on blogs and Twitter during the volcanic eruption in April 2010

Eyjafjalla

As the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, in Iceland at the end of March/ early April 2010, its ash cloud created an unprecedented situation for European air travel. By mid-April, air travel over northern and central Europe was resumed. DLR was involved in investigating the ash cloud and its effects on air travel in several different ways. I'd like to use this blog entry to illustrate our experiences and learning processes in online communication over this period in mid April 2010, especially on DLR blogs and on Twitter. read more

Security | 19. October 2010 | posted by Jan Wörner

DLR as a service provider - supplying information during crises

DLR has long been using its special expertise and facilities to provide data and data products during crisis situations, which help humanitarian assistance, in particular, to be guaranteed. In a previous blog post, I described a discussion I had with the German Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière. Since then, a few weeks have gone by. We have, in that time, intensively continued the activities we discussed and have taken the first steps towards a creating a permanent institutional framework for them. read more

Space | 06. August 2010

TanDEM-X answers its first call for crisis assistance

Satellite data is an indispensable tool for quickly assessment of the situation in cases of natural or environmental disasters and for guiding emergency teams on ground. DLR's 'Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information' (Zentrum für satellitengestützte Kriseninformation; ZKI) and many other international organizations have been using the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X for three years to rapidly obtain reliable data in all weather conditions for such crisis situations. Now, our new satellite, TanDEM-X, has also provided assistance for the first time in a crisis – gathering information on the flood catastrophe in Pakistan. We were able to help not only with radar images but we also used TanDEM-X for interferometry in formation with TerraSAR-X for the first time. This has provided a more reliable technique to map floods instantaneously and more accurately, in one pass and without the need for archived data. read more

Security | 19. July 2010 | posted by Jan Oliver Löfken

Energy question of the week: Does the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico mean the end of deep sea drilling?

Since disaster struck the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April 2010, up to nine million litres of crude oil have been gushing into the sea every day. It remains to be seen whether the recently installed 40-ton cap can really stop the majority of the oil flowing from the wellhead, 1500 metres under the sea. The spill will only be stopped definitively when the relief wells are completed in mid-August. But is this catastrophe the beginning of the end for deep sea drilling? read more

Aeronautics | 26. April 2010 | posted by Jan Wörner

A volcanic eruption affects the whole of Europe – is the air clear?

Two days after the successful flight of DLR's Falcon research aircraft, the airspace over Germany has been re-opened. Admittedly, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano is still ejecting lava and ash, but the German weather service (DWD), the German air traffic control organisation (DFS) and the German Federal Ministry of Transport (BMVBS) have authorised flights again on the basis of current weather data. DLR has carried out two more flights after requests from the authorities, and the dust has settled, or – to be more precise – has moved on. read more

Transport | 16. April 2010 | posted by Jan Wörner

A volcanic eruption affects the whole of Europe

As of today, nearly all Europeans know that Iceland has active volcanos, and some are even familiar with the name Eyjafjallajökull. The consequences of the eruption have paralysed air traffic over a wide area. DLR was able – as were its partner organizations, NASA and ESA – to use its expertise and access to appropriate satellite data to inform the public about the extent of the problem. read more