DLR has its headquarters in Cologne. The site is located next to Cologne-Bonn airport. Approximately 1,500 employees work in the institutes and facilities and in the central administration.
It stands vertically on flat ground, ready for its historic mission. At 19:18 CET on 12 February 2019, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³) or 'Mole' was deployed on the Martian surface using the NASA InSight mission's robotic arm.
Solar researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have investigated whether it is economically viable for a solar thermal power plant to convert excess photovoltaic and wind power into heat and store it. Heat can be stored more cost-effectively than electricity, and can be recovered from the storage system as required in order to generate electricity.
Solar researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have investigated how solar energy can replace fossil fuels for the cement production process. The initial manufacturing stage, the calcination of raw cement powder, has been successfully tested using a rotary kiln in the solar simulator at the DLR Institute of Solar Research in Cologne.
It was a task that required centimetre precision. Over the last few weeks, researchers from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have measured every rock shown in the images of the InSight landing site and used the radiometer that is part of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³) experiment to analyse the dust on the surface of Mars, in order to determine the ideal point for deploying the InSight mission's instruments.