Research Field Aeronautics, Space and Transport

With their particularly great technological and innovation potential, the activities in the three programmes contribute towards internationally strengthening and rendering visible Germany’s role as a location for research and innovation.

The German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt, DLR) is the only centre in the Helmholtz research field Aeronautics, Space and Transport. At the same time, it is the Federal Republic of Germany’s national research centre for aviation and aerospace and as Germany’s national space agency responsible for realising the German government’s national space agenda and the contributions towards the European Space Agency ESA. All 13 DLR sites scattered across the various federal states closely network with universities and non-university research institutions. The DLR also cooperates closely with other Helmholtz Centres, in particular with the two research fields Energy and Earth and Environment.

The instrument DLR@UNI does justice to both the diversity of content and the respective ancillary conditions within the cooperation and establishes a framework for partnerships marked by content. It can consist of various activities from joint research over further education to joint initiatives in business start-ups. By now, three institutional connections have been established on this basis, each tailored especially to meet the demands and each featuring different organisational structures:

• DLR@TU Braunschweig carries the name “Campus Research Airport” and focuses on the theme of aviation and traffic research. 
• DLR@Uni Stuttgart has defined a “Research Campus” with the motto “Designing the Future Together”.
• “Munich Aerospace” – a joint faculty of the Technical University Munich, the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, the DLR and the Bauhaus Luftfahrt – was established to serve as a research, development and training platform for the Munich aerospace community.

The aim of activities is to use the available resources even more efficiently through direct, institutional cooperation with universities via the already successfully applied practice of joint appointment of institute heads and, in part, department heads.

One outstanding example for industry cooperation is the national earth observation satellite TanDEM-X, which started at the end of June from the spaceport Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The radar satellite TanDEM-X is financed as a public-private partnership project between the DLR and Astrium GmbH with funds from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and is to fly in formation with its twin satellite TerraSAR-X, which already is in orbit, at a distance of in part only 200 metres over the earth to obtain three-dimensional height profiles of land and ocean surfaces.

Another example is the signing of the cooperation agreement with Bombardier Transportation, sealing the pact for long-term collaboration in the field of rail vehicle research. The central goal is to jointly advance research and development of next generation high-speed trains and to optimally use the respective competencies. The flying Stratosphere Observatory for Infrared Astronomy SOFIA is a joint project of the American space agency NASA and the DLR and was able to observe astronomical infrared objects in flight for the first time in May.