Space | 27. August 2012 | posted by Jan Wörner

A political week - with a sad ending

DLR got quite a bit of political attention last week, with a steady parade of three Federal ministers, a State minister and two State secretaries. Such contacts are very important for DLR because – rather than give a quantitative balance in terms of "what are you doing with the taxpayers' money?" – we are able to show them the work carried out at our research sites. Unfortunately, the weekend ended sadly with the death of a great man: Neil Armstrong.




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Space | 02. August 2012

Ariane 5 with record GTO payload mass launches tonight

Exactly four weeks after the last launch, the next Ariane is, once again, on the launch platform! The final launch preparations are underway for what will be the fourth Ariane 5 launch (VA208) this year from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The 'dress rehearsal' took place last Friday, and the Launch Readiness Review was completed successfully on Tuesday. Yesterday, the rocket was rolled out to the launch platform, so nothing stands in the way of tonight’s launch. The Ariane 5 launch window opens at 22:54 CEST and closes 57 minutes later at 23:51 CEST. Those interested can follow the launch on the 'live-stream' provided by Arianespace. read more

Space | 01. August 2012 | posted by Andrea Haag

… And that's a wrap!

Last week was amazing – the largest ever International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) was held in Munich. With over 2700 participants from 68 countries, and over 2500 scientific presentations, it was an excellent platform for knowledge exchange and the exploration and discussion of topics related to 'Remote Sensing for a Dynamic Earth'. Some of the highlights of the symposium included ESA's Envisat and upcoming Sentinel missions, the future of Earth observation, and last but not least, DLR's TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X satellites. read more