German high-tech suppliers bolster the aerospace industry
German companies are successfully reaching for the stars with increasingly frequency these days: numerous satellites, rockets and probes are equipped with technology and modules made in Germany. Indeed, a brief glance shows a vigorous industry occupying some highly specialized technology niches.
The aviation and aerospace industry is an engine of growth for the German economy,” as the President of the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI), Dr. Thomas Enders, noted recently. Enders cites the consolidation of the national fittings and supply industry as a central challenge for the sector. Furthermore, he says, it is vital for the aerospace industry to redouble its efforts in the areas of innovation, research and technology.
The strategy is paying dividends for Germany. Sales in the aerospace industry in 2007 grew 0.5 percent year-on-year to a total of EUR 1.46 billion, which gives the industry a 7.2 percent share. Employee numbers rose 0.5 percent, now totaling 5,600. These facts underline the German aerospace industry’s excellent reputation in Europe and the world, says Enders. “With the successful integration of the Columbus research module in the ISS, the successful docking of the Jules Verne automatic transporter and the German Armed Forces’ commissioning of the SAR-Lupe system, 2008 saw us again demonstrate in impressive form how reliable and effective the German aerospace industry is,” emphasized the BDLI President. Besides large conglomerates, SMEs are also working on developing technologies and equipment, including individual parts, which will set Germany apart as a key location for the high-tech industries in the world. According to Enders, the innovation drivers of this strategy are the fields of exploration, security and defense, Earth observation and communication.
In the area of Earth observation and communication, Tesat Spacecom GmbH & Co. KG, a medium-sized company from Backnang near Stuttgart (800 employees, EUR 158 million in sales), developed laser terminals, for example, which successfully passed a first test in space in the spring of 2008. They transmitted a data broadband rate of 5.5 Gbit per second between two satellites in space, the German TerraSAR-X and the U.S. satellite, NFIRE. The satellites fly in a low orbit around the Earth, passing each other several times a day at a distance of up to 5,000 km and a speed of around 25,000 km/h. Each time they pass there is a window of about 20 minutes during which a laser connection, and thus the data transfer, can be realized.
Laser technology plays a key role
This high-performance laser terminal was developed and produced by Tesat-Spacecom, commissioned by the DLR, the German Aerospace Center. Testat is already working on the next generation of laser terminals, because those tested in the field demonstrate a higher capacity than the early models from the European Space Agency (ESA). They are also substantially smaller and more efficient. Because they apply a modern and highly sensitive, coherent transmission technology, the Tesat-Spacecom terminals themselves are not dazzled by direct sunlight – they continue to work perfectly. This affords Germany a leading position in the world in a strategically important area of satellite communication. The laser terminals are important elements in a future space-based data-relay-satellite infrastructure, which is becoming increasingly important for the immediate transmission of image data from Earth-observation satellites or aircraft to distant ground stations.
RapidEye AG, for instance, is a startup company that commercializes Earth-observation data. The RapidEye system consists of five satellites circling the Earth approximately equidistantly in a common orbit 630 km up in space. The system’s optical cameras can be trained on any point on Earth on a daily basis. These image-recording systems for the satellite-based RapidEye Earth-observation system were supplied by Jena-Optronik GmbH, a subsidiary of Jenoptik in the photonics segment. This makes Jena-Optronik one of the world’s leading manufacturers of opto-electronic camera and sensor systems for space applications. For each of the five Earth-observation satellites, the Jena-based specialist in space technologies supplied multispectral cameras and the associated onboard data processing systems. From this year, the satellite project makes it possible to deliver pin-sharp and high-resolution images from space on a daily basis.
Government invests EUR 14.7 million
RapidEye AG is thus the first German company in private hands to invest large-scale in a space-flight project. It is supported in this endeavor by the DLR (with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and the state of Brandenburg. The federal government has entered into a cooperation agreement in the form of a public-private partnership (PPP) with RapidEye AG and secured the right to use the scientific data with an investment of EUR 14.7 million. Around 140 skilled jobs have been created in the city of Brandenburg/Havel. With this investment, the DLR is also making it possible for German scientists to use – free of charge – remote sensing data for the development of new products in numerous fields of application relevant to geoscientific and environmental research goals. This will enable German institutions to achieve outstanding prominence as the European initiative for the establishment of a system of global monitoring for environment and security (known as GMES) develops.
Jena-Optronik (135 employees), based in Thuringia and one of the leading providers of instruments and systems in the international aviation and aerospace market, is making a name for itself not only with multispectral cameras but also by supplying the Burst Monitor – the centerpiece of the GLAST mission (Gamma-Ray Large Area Telescope). The mission began when a rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral on June 11, 2008. NASA’s GLAST mission incorporates the two Large Area Telescope instruments (LAT) and the GBM (GLAST Burst Monitor). The GBM detector system will register gamma-ray bursts and immediately report them through an international network to observation stations and satellites and to the Large Area Telescope. The Gamma Burst Monitor itself also records all available data (spectra and time series) on the gamma-ray bursts.
The GLAST Burst Monitor was planned, developed and built by American and German scientists working in cooperation. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Alabama in Huntsville worked with scientists from the Gamma Astronomy Group of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching near Munich. Given its experience in building gamma-ray detectors, such as the one it constructed for the European Space Agency’s “Integral” gamma-ray observatory, the Max Planck Institute took on the task of providing the detectors for the GBM and the electronics for its screening functions. In conjunction with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Jena-Optronik GmbH developed, manufactured and space tested the centerpiece of the GBM, the detector system. GBM consists of the 12 sodium iodide (NaI) and two bismuth germanate (BGO) scintillation detectors developed by Jena-Optronik. When hit by gamma rays, the detector crystals generate flashes of light, which are amplified by secondary electron multipliers and further processed by extremely fast electronic modules. To obtain the largest possible field of vision in which to record the bursts, the detectors are arranged equidistantly around the periphery of the GLAST satellite. The screening electronics were manufactured by EADS Astrium.
Janette Junghanns
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