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26.4.19 - Rosetta "Post-Mission": Neue Erkenntnisse zu Temperatur und Beschaffenheit der Kometenoberfläche Zweieinhalb Jahre sind seit dem Ende der operativen Phase der Mission Rosetta im September 2016 vergangen. Die wissenschaftliche Auswertung der Unmengen an Daten der Instrumente auf der Raumsonde und dem Lander Philae dauert weiter an. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Oberflächentemperatur und thermischen Effekten der "Badeenten-Form" des Kometen P67/Churyumov-Gerasimenko veröffentlichte das Wissenschaftlerteam des Instruments VIRTIS am 22. April 2019 in Nature Astronomy. Die deutschen wissenschaftlichen Beiträge zu VIRTIS leitet das Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). Read more

11.4.19 - Lunar gravity 600 kilometres above Earth The compact German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Eu:CROPIS satellite is now rotating in space at a rate of 17.5 revolutions per minute, generating a gravitational force in its interior similar to that found on the Moon. After its launch on 3 December 2018, DLR engineers successfully tested and commanded the spacecraft. The experiments were then put into operation on 5 December. As the upload of updated software for the two greenhouses inside the spacecraft caused delays in January 2019, the engineers and scientists replanned the sequence of additional experiments. After the experiments with the SCalable On-BoaRd Computing Experiment (SCORE) and the RAdiation Measurement In Space (RAMIS) devices, the third experiment, PowerCell, a mission contribution from NASA, was activated under lunar gravity conditions. Read more

11.4.19- Tests for the InSight 'Mole' A blue box, a cubic metre of Mars-like sand, a rock, a fully-functional model of the Mars 'Mole' and a seismometer – these are the main components with which the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is simulating the current situation on Mars. After its first hammering operation on 28 February 2019, the DLR Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP³), the Mars Mole, was only able to drive itself about 30 centimetres into the Martian subsurface. DLR planetary researchers and engineers are now analysing how this could have happened and looking into what measures could be taken to remedy the situation. Read more

21.03.19 - InSight mission – Diagnostic run for the 'Mole' on Mars The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) will command the Mars ‘Mole’ to begin a short new round of hammering at the end of March. The seismometer and the camera will closely monitor the movement of the Mole. The researchers want to analyse in more detail the situation of the self-hammering probe, which has shown no further progress since it reached a depth of approximately 30 centimetres at the beginning of March. Different ideas for releasing the Mole require a more detailed analysis of the situation and at least a few more weeks to test different strategies on Earth. Read more

1.3.19 - „Good luck ‘Mole’ – DLR’s HP3 experiment starts hammering into the Martian soil On 28 February 2019, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) ‘Mole’ fully automatically hammered its way into the Martian subsurface for the first time. In a first step, it penetrated to a depth between 18 and 50 centimetres into the Martian soil with 4000 hammer blows over a period of four hours. "On its way into the depths, the mole seems to have hit a stone, tilted about 15 degrees and pushed it aside or passed it," reports Tilman Spohn, Principal Investigator of the HP3 experiment. "The Mole then worked its way up against another stone at an advanced depth until the planned four-hour operating time of the first sequence expired. Tests on Earth showed that the rod-shaped penetrometer is able to push smaller stones to the side, which is very time-consuming. Read more

20.10.17 - Students research the stratosphere in the Arctic The BEXUS 24 research balloon was launched from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden at 13:39 Central European Summer Time on Wednesday 18 October 2017. The balloon reached its maximum altitude of 24.6 kilometres at 15:25 at which point the gondola separated from the balloon (in a procedure called 'cut down'). The gondola landed back on Earth at 17:22 local time. On board the joint mission by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) were four science experiments designed by student teams from Spain, Italy and Sweden. Read more