It will be a first: in 2018 the Japanese Hayabusa 2 Mission will feature an asteroid landing and will, for the first time, allow for data acquisition at various points of this kind of celestial body, assisted by MASCOT, the hopping landing craft developed by DLR.
Future developments in space travel and aviation are the main reasons why the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is attending the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget. From 17 - 23 June 2013 DLR will be present with 12 exhibits on a stand shared with the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI).
An A320 overflying Scotland was the first aircraft 'seen' from space by a new receiver from the German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), proving that tracking aircraft from space is possible.
A special passenger was on board during the launch of ESA's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), 'Albert Einstein', on 5 June 2013 at 23:52 CEST – the STEREX experiment, funded by the DLR Space Administration and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Grabens, dendritic valleys, lava flows and the highest known mountain in the Solar System – in the images from the German stereo camera on board the Mars Express spacecraft, the topography of the Red Planet appears so three-dimensional that you could walk through it.
His muscles are of interest to the scientists, as is his internal clock and the radiation dose to which he will be exposed during his work in the European Columbus research laboratory. On 28 May 2013 at 22:31 CEST, the European Astronaut Luca Parmitano will depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on board the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft, beginning his journey to the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the Expedition 36/37 crew.
European astronaut Luca Parmitano's 'Volare' mission will begin on 28 May 2013 with the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The International Space Station will be his place of work and home for the next six months.
On 4 May 2013 at 04:06 (CEST), when the European Proba-V satellite lifts off on a Vega launcher with the primary mission of observing vegetation from space, it will be carrying another instrument on board – one that will be keeping an 'eye' on aircraft.
In 1993, during the second German D2 Spacelab Mission, astronaut Hans Schlegel orbited Earth 160 times and conducting numerous international experiments as payload specialist. This was Schlegel's first flight into space.
"Go for Spacelab activities," confirmed NASA Mission Control Center on 26 April 1993 at 18:51 CET. German astronauts Hans Schlegel and Ulrich Walter and their United States colleagues had to wait almost two months until, with this command, the D2 mission could finally begin.
It is a premiere eagerly awaited by scientists and technicians; on 19 April 2013, a Soyuz launcher successfully carried the successor to the long-standing BION series of Russian research satellites into space.
The first results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) have been released. This space 'camera' has recorded 20 billion cosmic particles in the first 18 months of operation – yet that is just a small step.
Bureaucracy-free assistance in the event of an emergency – this is the aim of the 15 space agencies united within the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'.
It is the world's longest running rocket programme for conducting research in microgravity, and today it is celebrating an anniversary. Around 35 years after the launch of the first TEXUS mission in December 1977, the 50th TEXUS rocket was successfully launched into space from the Esrange Space Center near Kiruna in northern Sweden on 12 April 2013 at 06:25 CEST.
From the outside it looks like just a large industrial robotic arm with a cockpit, but to the pilot inside the simulator, it feels like a real aircraft. The pilot sits at the controls, and the flight commands are converted into corresponding movements of the robotic arm in real time.
It began in the summer of 2009, with two legs and a camera mounted on top – but it was still far from being a robot of humanoid appearance. Gradually, the TOrque controlled humanoid RObot (TORO), the German Aerospace Center's (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) walking machine, has become more human-like – an upper body, a head with camera eyes and arms have been added.
Temperatures alternating between extreme heat and cold, electromagnetic radiation and weightlessness – environmental conditions prevailing in space are harsh. Nevertheless, satellite components and those of the International Space Station ISS and other systems must withstand these conditions and continue to function reliably. Within the national "On-Orbit-Verification"-(OOV)-Programme- the Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) is testing the maturity of space technologies under real condtitions in their intended space environment. The core element of this programme is the small satellite TET-1 built by the prime contractor Kayser-Threde GmbH of Munich.
The original Philae comet lander has been travelling through space since 2 March 2004. It is currently in hibernation mode, awaiting its arrival at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But the Philae models on the ground are being put through their paces: they are being tested to breaking point and examined by DLR.
Last week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced its choice of scientific experiments for the JUICE Mission (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer). The decision taken involved two experiments developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research.
Near Hanksville, Utah, in the United States, but 'on Mars'. At least that is what Volker Maiwald will feel when he embarks on his two-week mission in the Mars Desert Research Station on 23 February 2013.