The Robotics and Mechatronics Center (RMC) at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is exhibiting at AUTOMATICA, the leading international exhibition for automation and mechatronics, which is being held in Munich from 22 to 25 May.
The SHEFEX II (SHarp Edge Flight EXperiment) spacecraft successfully withstood vibration on a shaker and spinning at two rotations per second. These tests represented the final simulation of the conditions that the space vehicle will be subjected to during its launch in the summer of 2012.
Rendezvousing at 28,000 kilometres per hour at an altitude of about 380 kilometres is hardly routine – even for experienced spaceflight engineers and astronauts, which is why applause broke out in the European Space Agency (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) Control Centre in Toulouse when the third European space transporter, 'Edoardo Amaldi', docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at 00:31 CEST (22:31 UTC) on 29 March 2012.
Erica Barkasz is an early riser; her working day starts at six in the morning in the control room of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) ground station at Weilheim in Upper Bavaria.
"How clean is my air?" People, businesses and public authorities across Europe can now find this out online – the new 'obsAIRve' service portal provides rolling three-day forecasts and current observations of air quality for places and regions across Europe.
The first sounding balloons are in the air, and by 30 April 2012, 90 of these atmospheric probes will have been launched in sequence to gather data. Starting at Oberpfaffenhofen, their purpose is to record wind velocities and temperatures, especially at elevations between 12 and 30 kilometres.
The coastal regions of Malaysia are major source areas of biogenic halogen compounds capable of damaging the ozone layer. This was the verdict reached by scientists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) together with partners from the SHIVA project.
After a year in service, the German Earth observation satellite TanDEM-X, together with its twin satellite, TerraSAR-X, have completely mapped the entire land surface of Earth for the first time. The data is being used to create the world's first single-source, high-precision, 3D digital elevation model of Earth.
Can new types of engine make spaceflight easier and more economical? This question is being investigated by researchers at the German Aerospace Center using one of Europe's leading hypersonic wind tunnels, located in Göttingen.
The Arctic, Antarctic, Australian outback or Brazil: Wolfgang Jung spends several months a year in the most remote places on Earth to prepare and launch sounding rockets - also known as rocket probes - into space.