In a new radiation receiver developed for solar tower power plants, ceramic particles of around one millimetre in size are heated to 1000 degrees Celsius.
From 20 to 25 May 2014, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) will be at the Berlin Air Show (Internationale Luft- und Raumfahrtausstellung; ILA), presenting numerous concepts for more sustainable, safer and comfortable air travel. In the outdoor area at the air show, DLR will be exhibiting a number of its research aircraft, including the Falcon 20E atmospheric research aircraft. The Space Pavilion, designed by DLR in collaboration with its partners, will be showcasing the TORO walking robot and a number of current European space missions.
An international group of researchers has succeeded in producing the world's first jet fuel from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide in the SOLAR-JET (Solar chemical reactor demonstration and Optimization for Long-term Availability of Renewable JET fuel) project.
A symbiotic community of bacteria, tomatoes and single-celled algae, synthetic urine and a satellite that simulates the gravity of the Moon or Mars by rotating around its axis – these elements make up the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und- Raumfahrt; DLR) Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space) mission.
DLR sends two biomedical experiments from the University of Magdeburg to the ISS. Also on board – NASA cameras for Columbus Eye, the DLR student experiment.
Since 2011 the "Copernicus Masters" competition has been awarding prizes for outstanding ideas, applications and business models for the innovative use of earth observation data for commercial purposes and projects to benefit society at large. Companies, startups, researchers and students can submit their ideas from now until 13 July 2014. In the category "Energy & Environmental Challenge" the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is looking for the best idea for an application in the area of environment and climate. The DLR winner will receive a prize of 5,000 euro.
An exchange of knowledge and scientists across borders, joint research projects and workshops – with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on 16 April 2014, DLR and the Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) are strengthening their cooperation in the crucial research area of optical satellite-Earth communication.
Mapping flood events, observing oil slicks in the oceans, detecting ice distribution in the sea and measuring ground movements with millimetric precision – just some of the tasks of Sentinel-1A, the new flagship in European Earth observation. The roughly 2.3-ton, four-metre-high, two-and-a-half-metre-wide satellite was launched from the European Spaceport in French Guiana at 23:02 CEST (18:02 local time) on 3 April 2014.
In the process of evaluating thousands of datasets from the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope, planetary researchers at DLR have been tracking metallic asteroids.
More than two and a half years – this is how long the Philae lander has been hibernating while travelling through space on board the European Space Agency ESA Rosetta spacecraft. On 28 March, the lander was successfully reactivated and broke its planned radio silence by sending data to Earth from a distance of about 655 million kilometres.