Tasks
Acting on behalf of the Federal Government, the Space Administration designs and implements Germany's Space Program, which integrates all German space activities on the national and European plane. These activities include Germany's national Space Program, DLR's 'Space' research and development program and Germany's contributions to the European Space Administration (ESA) as well as the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). In addition, the Administration designs and supervises space and security research projects under the sixth and seventh EU research framework program.
The Space Administration's principal client is the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology. However, the Space Administration also works for other ministries, mainly in application-related fields such as Earth observation, navigation and satellite communication. The Federal Government's Space Program provides both business and science with a reliable political framework for independent planning and action, thus ensuring that public funds are used efficiently.
The national Program is implemented by the Space Administration. Its major function is to promote and support Germany's strategic goals in the European programs of ESA and the EU by purposefully equipping Germany's industry and scientific institutions for competition within the EU as well as for their tasks within the ESA framework.
Being essentially a high-tech infrastructure, astronautics should be seen as an enabling technology that generates new output chains. Commercial markets for terminals and services owe their very existence to investments in space technologies.
Strategic Orientation
The German Space Program focuses on: