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Current Missions

	EnMAP - Environmental Mapping Program EnMAP is the first German hyperspectral satellite mission. The main goal is to study a wide range of the Earth's land surface ecosystem. The satellite was launched in April 2022 and the mission is planned to run for a minimum of five years.
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Alphasat - TDP1

Revolution in satellite-to-earth communication: Data transfer via Laser - Todays earth observation satellite missions face one big problem: It takes quite some time until the recorded data can be sent from space to ground. It is not unusual to wait for several hours after a data take until the satellite is visible by a ground station and the data can be downloaded. Even then, it might happen that the complete data set is too large to be downloaded at once. Sometimes it is of highest importance to receive the data on ground as soon as possible, e.g. in case of observations of disasters like forest fires or floods.

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	Eu:CROPIS Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-food Production in Space) is a satellite mission launched successfully on 3 December 2018. Main payload are two greenhouses each as a pressurized closed loop system simulating the environmental conditions of the Moon or Mars and also on long duration missions. Numerous cameras and sensors observe the growth of tomatoes in space.
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	FireBird The FireBird mission is a two-satellite constellation mission. The primary mission goal is the monitoring of high temperature events on Earth (e.g. forest fires) through high-resolution IR-sensors.
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	GRACE-Follow-On The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow-On (GRACE-FO) Mission was launched on 22 May 2018 and will continue the GRACE mission. The primary mission goal is to generate high-resolution models for the static time variable components of the Earth's gravity field.
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	TanDEM-X - TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement The TanDEM-X project is being implemented by a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Astrium GmbH. The primary goal of the TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) mission is to generate a global digital elevation model.
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	TerraSAR-X TerraSAR-X is an operational, advanced SAR-satellite system for scientific and commercial applications that will be realized in a public-private partnership between DLR and Astrium GmbH.
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Missions Completed

	ABRIXAS Jointly proposed by Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik and Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik der Uni Tübingen the ABRIXAS (A BRoad-band Imaging X-ray All-sky Survey) satellite was intended to scan the sky by means of an imaging telescope in medium energy X-ray domain.
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	AEROS AEROS was the first aeronomic mission, navigation in extreme low earth orbits.The scientific goal was the global measurement of the ionospheric-plasma and its dependency on the altitude, geographical reference locations, as well as daytime and change of the season dependencies.
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	AMPTE Tri-lateral project (USA, UK and Germany) for studying the solar wind and initiating the first artificial comet. The AMPTE program consisted of three spacecraft.
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	AZUR AZUR was the first co-operative project between USA and Germany. The scientific objectives of this mission were to study the inner radiation belt, the auroral zones of the Northern Hemisphere, and the spectral variations of solar particles during solar flares.
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	BIRD - Bispectral InfraRed Detector DLR's satellite BIRD is intended to detect high temperature events such as forest fires, volcanic activity as well as burning oil wells and coal seams. The performance of these newly developped bi-spectral infrared array sensors and other components are beeing evaluated for these tasks.
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	CHAMP - CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload CHAMP provides important contributions for geo-scientific research and information about the physics of the atmosphere.
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	Equator-S EQUATOR-S was launched on December 2, 1997 into the Geostationary Transfer Orbit (200 km x 36000 km) on an Ariane 4 (44P).
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	EXPRESS On 15 January 1995 (13:45 UTC) the EXPRESS capsule was launched by an M-3 SII launch vehicle at Kagoshima Space Center, Japan, into a near-earth orbit.
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	GALILEO Launched in 18 October 1989, the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter on 7 December 1995, when it fired its main engine for a successful orbit capture around Jupiter. It was designed to study the planet's atmosphere, satellites and surrounding magnetosphere.
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	GRACE - Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment The GRACE mission is a joint German-American project. The primary objective of the GRACE mission was to obtain accurate global models for the mean and time variable components of the earth´s gravity field.
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	HELIOS HELIOS was the first US/German interplanetary mission. Launched in 1974 (HELIOS 1, 10 December 1974 - 15 March 1986) and 1976 (HELIOS 2, 15 January 1976 - 8 January 1981), the two German built (MBB) Helios probes approached the sun closer than the inner planet Mercury (0.3 AU) and closer than any spaceprobe ever.
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	MOMS-2P Taking part in the Russian PRIRODA program, GSOC acted as remote Payload Operations Control Center (POCC).
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	PAZ The Spanish PAZ satellite (owner HisdesSAT) is an X-band SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) spacecraft based on the TerraSAR-X platform built by Airbus. It is the first Spanish satellite for radar-based Earth Observation. Launch Date was 22 February 2018.
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	Prisma PRISMA is a Swedish experimental and demonstration mission with participation of Denmark, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Under lead of the Swedish Space Cooperation SSC, a series of experiments testing formation flying and rendezvous technologies were performed at GSOC.
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	ROSAT ROSAT was a German-British-US X-ray astronomy project with the goal to perform the first complete all-sky survey of celestial X-ray sources.
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	SAR-Lupe The SAR-Lupe System consists of five identical satellites, which were launched in intervals of six months. It serves the German Federal Armed Forces as a national reconnaissance system for monitoring areas of interest.
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EnMAP - Environmental Mapping Program

Alphasat - TDP1

Eu:CROPIS

FireBird

GRACE-Follow-On

TanDEM-X - TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement

TerraSAR-X

ABRIXAS

AEROS

AMPTE

AZUR

BIRD - Bispectral InfraRed Detector

CHAMP - CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload

Equator-S

EXPRESS

GALILEO

GRACE - Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment

HELIOS

MOMS-2P

PAZ

Prisma

ROSAT

SAR-Lupe