The DLR Magazine is the most important printed media in DLR’s communication portfolio. In spite of this, or rather, especially because of this, it is now available for tablets such as the iPad and devices running the Android operating system.
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Three space agencies, DLR, ESA and NASA, as well as their astronauts tweet, blog and post messages on a wide array of social media channels; often, they or respectively their astronauts even do so from space. Why do they do this, and how does it work? Here is what astronauts and social media experts at DLR, ESA and NASA had to say on this subject at re:publica 2012, Germany’s largest and most prominent conference on the future of society and all things digital.
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I have great pleasure in announcing that members of DLR, NASA and ESA will be participating in a session at re:publica Berlin from 2 to 4 May 2012. According to the organisers, re:publica is “Germany’s largest and most prominent conference on the future of society and all things digital.”
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Last week, on 28/29 March 2012, the fourth European SpaceTweetup took place in Toulouse, France. A good reason to blog about the reach and numbers of such a communication measure.
Plenty has already been written about the first European Space Tweetup, organised by DLR and ESA, which took place in September 2011, so I will - with some delay - now just concentrate on the numbers here. For any readers who want to know more about the SpaceTweetup and find out what it was all about, I recommend this or that blog article.
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Here is a list of the social media channels for German Aerospace Day and the associated SpaceTweetup; nearly all the events can be followed in (almost) real time.
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The new version of DLR's iOS App provides a wealth of information right at your fingertips - now also supporting the features of the iPad.
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Today we sent off the last invitation letters for the first european SpaceTweetup, jointly organised by DLR and ESA. I cannot make clear enough how happy I am to organise and host this event together with our friends from ESA's communication department. But before I give you a little bit of background information on how the event came about, let me first answer the often heard question:
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Der Tag beginnt für uns um 8.00 Uhr Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) in Cocoa Beach, Florida, mit einer Pressekonferenz bzw. einem Media Briefing zum Thema "Nutzung der Internationalen Raumstation ISS: Deutschlands Pläne und Projekte", zu der DLR und ESA geladen haben und in deren Rahmen der deutsche AMS-02-Projektleiter Stefan Schael von der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Technischen Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen und DLR-Vorstandsvorsitzender Jan Wörner sich den Fragen der Journalisten stellen. Im Rahmen der Pressekonferenz fällt schon bald ein zentraler Satz von Stefan Schael: "Wenn AMS dort draußen keine Antimaterie findet, dann gibt es auch keine." Im Umkehrschluss bedeutet dies, dass Principal Investigator Samuel Ting, Stefan Schael und ihre vielen über den Erdball verteilten an AMS beteiligten Kollegen hoffen, mit dem heutigen Start des Alpha-Magnet-Spektrometers AMS die derzeit gültige Hypothese, dass nach dem Urknall ebensoviel Materie wie Antimaterie entstand, belegen zu können.
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The alarm clock goes off at 04:45 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). At 05:30, breakfast. At 06:00, the ESA-DLR media delegation, consisting of a dozen journalists and a number of 'Public Affairs Officers' (as NASA calls them) is on the move. At 08:40, after obtaining additional accreditation at two badging stations, we finally arrive at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) press site.
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Since yesterday's Flight Readiness Review (FRR) confirmed a "Go" for Endeavour's Launch on 29 April it's now certain that we (me, that is) will continue blogging here starting next Thursday, 28 April, where there will be first photo opportunities at Kennedy Space Center. Unfortunately my DLR colleague Thilo Kranz, fellow blogger and excellent shuttle photographer, will not be there this time.
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With this new set of images that Thilo recently sent, we start to tie in with Space Shuttle Mission STS-134 which will carry the European-built Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. The mission won't launch before 19 April 2011, but we already have some great images.
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Last night, Thilo sent back pictures of Discovery's launch that he took himself, including some taken with a remote camera. The latter were taken with the help of a sound sensor that triggered the camera, located directly at the launch pad.
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NASA quotes "Launch week" and we're on it again. At this very moment, Thilo is on the airplane to Florida to flickr and phlog the launch of STS-133. Even if on this photo (taken in November 2010) it looks like I am travelling with him: I am not, but will blog from Cologne instead.
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The first version of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) iPhone App is now available via the iTunes store. This free App gives users access to a wealth of information wherever they go. The DLR App is a dynamic online news aggregator that compiles all relevant information on DLR research areas of space, aviation, energy and transport - from breaking news to videos to imagery - and delivers it to your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad).
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As most of you certainly know by now, the launch of space shuttle Discovery has been postponed to no earlier than Tuesday, 30 November 2010. The launch window closes Sunday, 5 December. For our little PhotoBlog this means we’ll pause, most likely until the start of STS-134. Many thanks for reading us!
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Tonight (that means on the night of 3 November) the Space shuttle’s Rotating Service Structure has been rolled back and revealed Discovery in its entire beauty. The Flickr set shows the respecitve images plus some more, e.g. Thilo’s camera in a bird house, prepared for launch.
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Space journalists need to have stamina - in particular when reporting on a shuttle launch. Often, scrub follows scrub follows scrub - which is just normal with regard to the complex matter of space flight. On these images, you see the journalists waiting for a news conference following a meeting of the Shuttle Mission Management Team (MMT) – but the news conference will of course only start after the hours-long meeting has finished.
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Updated 2/11/2010, 11.00 EDT / 16.00 MEZ
Thilo Kranz and myself have been on two different tours today and had the possibility to shoot some behind the scenes footage. Thilo has been on a press tour. It took him to Launch Pad 39B, which in the meantime is being dismantled and rebuild for the requirements of the Constellation programme. I visited the Orbiter Processing Facility OPF-1, Launch Pad 39A with Space shuttle Discovery on it and the 160 metre tall Vehicle Assemby Building.
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In my last blogpost I said 'Thilo Kranz and me will be will be 'blogging and flickering'. Hence I've just set up a dedicated Flickr set for our photos of the STS-133 launch. For the moment I've uploaded just a couple of placeholder images, borrowed from our colleagues at NASA.
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Space shuttle mission STS-133 is currently scheduled for launch on Monday, 1 November 2010. STS-133 is currently the penultimate mission of NASA's legendary Space shuttle programme. Via the 'ShuttleLaunchBlog' it is our goal to document these last Space shuttle launches by means of photographs and short captions: The end of an era in - hopefully - fascinating images - in our first photoblog.
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Ever more frequently, we in the DLR Communication Department have to answer the question how and why we use social networks and social media in our work. In this blogpost I'd like to go into our social media strategy - and to explain our approach to online communications in general.
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In the recent past, many of our readers pointed out a poor readability of DLR Blogs. We have optimised this last night. White font and dark blue links on a "brushed metal" background have now been replaced with a typical black font on a lighter coloured background.
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Just a quick note: I've just renamed this blog (formerly "NewsBlog") to CommunicationBlog or "CommBlog". The reason behind is that - in relation to the news-oriented homepage of the DLR Web Portal - "NewsBlog" sounded misleading.
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DLR staff member Thilo Kranz took this great image in his leisure time last Sunday. It shows a transit of the Sun by the International Space Station ISS with Space Shuttle Atlantis docked.
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The SOFIA ‘flying observatory’, a collaboration between NASA and DLR, is making great progress. After two test flights in December 2009, a third successful flight was made on 15 January 2010. A brief news roundup.
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Am Montag, 11.01.2010, war Prof. Johann-Dietrich Wörner in der Sendung MonTalk auf WDR 2 zu Gast. Themen waren unter anderem der Mond und robotische Exploration. Die Sendung steht als Podcast zur Verfügung.
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Today, we have taken our new DLR Blogs platform live; we wish to offer you a warm welcome. We are starting with three blogs. Firstly, there is a blog by Jan Wörner, chairman of the DLR Executive board, who offers insights into his work. Secondly, we have started our NewsBlog, in which we intend to publish the short stories, pictures, videos or other items of interest that do not find a place on the homepage of our web portal – www.dlr.de/en. Last but not least, there's the EnergyBlog. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung; BMBF) has nominated 'The Future of Energy' as the topic for the german Science Year 2010. This is more than sufficient reason for us to address the subject with a dedicated blog, in which we will also answer an 'Energy Question of the Week'.
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