Highlight Nr. 23 - September 2007

Lunar Mission BW1 and SOFIA at the federal
government's open house in Berlin

On August 25 and 26, 2007 the Institute of Space Systems (IRS) and the German SOFIA Institute presented their work at the federal government's open house at the Chancellor's office in Berlin. The motto of the presentation was "Land of Ideas".

Almost 40,000 visitors took advantage of the warm summer day to accept the invitation for a "state visit" to the Chancellor's office and the surrounding park. Next to the Spree River in the middle of Berlin in a pavilion that was part of the exhibit "Space Research" the moon satellite Lunar Mission BW1 and the flying infrared observatory were presented.

Dagmar Bock and René Laufer from IRS demonstrated the unusual potential of the Stuttgart small satellite program using a true-to-scale model of the moon satellite Lunar Mission BW1. Because of his unusual shape, it was not easy for the square-shaped KiKa TV star Bernd the Bread, who was the most famous guest in the park besides Chancellor Angela Merkel, to walk across the park to visit the similarly shaped satellite at the IRS stand. But René Laufer, one of Bernd's biggest fans, was excited that the TV star made the long and difficult journey. The moon satellite will accomplish its two-year trip to Earth’s nearest neighbor using electric thrusters especially developed, built and tested for this mission. Once it arrives at the moon, innovative experiments will be used to explore our neighbor's surface and environment. Remote sensing instruments will investigate the surface's structure and its properties; in-situ measurements will provide knowledge of the dust flow in the moon's orbit.
The general public as well as aerospace professionals, including colleagues from DLR and ESA, Max Planck Institutes, other universities as well as aerospace companies, took advantage of the opportunity to inform themselves about the current status of the Stuttgart Small Satellite Program.
Many conversations with individual visitors and interested groups offered IRS an excellent opportunity to present their activities.

The German SOFIA Institute, located at IRS, presented the topic "Submillimeter and Infrared Astronomy in Germany" together with the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which will provide scientists with new findings about space, will also be presented. Using a model of the airplane observatory and its telescope, Nadine Hanisch and Sven Schmid explained to many interested visitors how starting in 2009 astronomers will use SOFIA to observe young stars and planetary systems and comprehend the formation and development of the first remote galaxies.
In particular, the model of the unusual and unique airplane was repeatedly the basis for questions from visitors and international guests, for example from the Romanian capital Sofia, but also from police and army officers who were present.
Dr. Albrecht Poglitsch from MPE explained how, for example, he and his research colleagues use FIFI-LS (Far-Infrared Field-Imaging Line Spectrometer), one of the two German SOFIA instruments, to investigate galaxies with an especially high infrared illumination in relation to their star formation or black holes.
Prof. Jürgen Stutzki and his colleagues from the University of Cologne presented space hardware and astronomical instruments which were developed by students at the "First Institute of Physics". Among other topics, our associates from Cologne reported on GREAT, the German Receiver at Terahertz, which is SOFIA’S second German and official "First Light" instrument. Furthermore, they displayed a model of the Herschel Space Observatory, which the European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch in the summer of 2008. Also on board this astronomical satellite will be the HIFI instrument, which is equipped with a superconductive detector and an acoustic-optical spectrometer developed in part at the institute in Cologne. To explain the astronomical goals of far infrared astronomy, which these instruments will pursue, several posters were used.