On 29 October 2018, the Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) was opened in Bremerhaven. Operating against the backdrop of the Energy Transition, digitalisation, innovative mobility and global connectivity, the new institute will focus on the task of protecting vital infrastructures such as ports and offshore wind farms against accidents and terrorist or other attacks. It is the first of its kind in Europe.
Global maritime routes are the backbone of worldwide trade, yet at the same time constitute highly sensitive infrastructure. Ships are exposed to a multitude of risks, be it extreme weather, accidents or criminal activities. Being able to quickly get an overview of any potentially dangerous situation is vital.
On 4 October, a team from the aid organisation I.S.A.R. Germany (International Search and Rescue) met up with a representative from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in Palu, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The region had been hit by a severe earthquake and a tsunami six days earlier.
A buzzing noise fills the summer air above the Heilbronn Weingenossenschaft vineyards. The source – a small remote-controlled hexacopter hovering a few metres above the vines. Hanging below it is a black box – slightly larger than a shoebox – that contains a laser-based detection system.
How can ever-larger volumes of scientific data be processed and evaluated? And how can Earth observation data be meaningfully combined with ground measurements, thereby opening up new sources of information? In the cross-sectoral Big Data Platform project, researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are devising new methods for the future-oriented field of Big Data Science. The interdisciplinary research project involves 21 DLR institutes from the research fields of spaceflight, aeronautics, transport, energy, digitalisation and security – all working together. The project is set to run for four years and has received more than 21 million euro of funding.
The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures made its first appearance as a partner at International Safety@Sea Week. This event was organised by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and held from 18 to 23 June 2018 in the Southeast Asian metropolis.
On 14 June 2018, DLR opened Korea's largest conference and exhibition in the area of defence science and technology with a keynote speech from DLR's Executive Board Representative for Defence and Security Research, Dennis Göge. The 20th conference of Korea's Institute of Military Science and Technology (KIMST) was held in Jeju Island from 14 to 15 June, in the Jeju International Convention Center, and attracted more than 1500 participants with more than 1100 paper presentations.
The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is unique within Germany and in Europe with regard to its work and research areas – as a national research centre and Space Administration as well as a Project Management Agency.
Emergency services in the US state of California are still fighting fierce forest fires. Severe drought and strong winds have allowed the fires to spread. The FireBIRD (Fire Bispectral InfraRed Detector) mission run by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) consists of a pair of satellites – TET-1 (Technology Experiment Carrier) and BIROS (Bispectral Infrared Optical System).
More and more people around the world are flocking to cities, creating densely populated regions. This also means that natural disasters pose a threat to a greater number of people, and that risk has been rising for decades worldwide.
The inner values revealed in this year's last DLRmagazine say something about the resilience of components. But as is the case with inner values, they are not readily disclosed. The information is cleverly obtained from the material, by means of three-dimensional digital images of the pores in material alloys, for example.
Seafaring vessels use satellites to determine their precise position to within a few metres. It is particularly important that exact positional information is constantly available in coastal waters and ports or near offshore wind farms and oil platforms.
In anticipation of the catastrophic Hurricane Harvey, the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' was activated early on the evening of 24 August 2017. This was initiated by the Charter member United States Geological Survey (USGS) on behalf of the Texas Emergency Management Council. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided real-time recordings and archive data from the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X, which enabled a detailed analysis and an overview of the flood situation. Using these and other satellite data provided by 16 Charter members, the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas is currently working on providing assistance and information to disaster relief personnel on the ground.
On 24 July 2017, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) presented the new DLR strategy at the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), in tandem with project leader Airbus Defence and Space, has successfully flight tested a new aircraft as part of the development of future production-ready drones (UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles).
The Senate of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) approved the establishment of seven DLR institutes in its meeting on 28 June 2017. DLR was tasked with building new institutes by a resolution of the Budgetary Committee of the Deutscher Bundestag in November 2016.
Scientists from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) teamed up with I.S.A.R. Germany (International Search and Rescue) and Germandrones to take part in an international disaster rehearsal from 8 to 10 May 2017.
Expansive forest fires have raged through Chile for some weeks now due to a long dry spell. On 25 January 2017, the Chilean National Office for Emergency (Oficina Nacional de Emergencia del Ministerio del Interior; ONEMI) activated the International Charter Space and Major Disasters to obtain up-to-date situation images of the disaster area to assist emergency services.
Climate change, digitalisation, Industry 4.0 and transformation of the energy and traffic systems – these central societal responsibilities will be at the heart of the research conducted by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in 2017. DLR will present the focus of this year's research and some selected projects at the New Year’s press conference on 26 January 2017 in Berlin.
A test simulating crashes between high-speed trains, hunting for clouds in West Africa, the maiden flight of a four-passenger fuel cell aircraft – 2016 at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) has been a year of numerous research highlights.