DLR in Bonn is the headquarters of the German Space Agency. It is responsible for managing national space activities on behalf of the federal government. Furthermore, several offices of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) are located here.
Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the Solar System and a potential refuge for extraterrestrial life, is 7000 metres deep and stretches for some 4000 kilometres along the Martian equator.
How has our ozone layer changed in the last 10 years? How do trace gases like nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide and methane influence our climate? How do environmental protection measures work? These were the questions that German researchers sought to address.
Is there life under the icy crust of Enceladus? If Europe's plans for a future mission to Enceladus do become reality, German researchers would like to study this water source for traces of life.
On 31 October at 22:58 CET (on 1 November at 05:58 local time), the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou-8 was launched on board a Long March rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia.