Gallery of speakers

Thin-Ply Hybrid CFRP Materials for Lightweight Structures

Thin-Ply carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics are high-performance materials in applications where a low density combined with high stiffness and strength are required. A layer thickness below 60 µm characterizes them. The limiting factors to…

Material for space applications – Challenges and new frontiers for OHB

OHB business fields cover a multitude of different satellites, orbits, applications for space and therefore different challenges for the materials used in the different designs.

After a brief introduction on the company…

There is order within disorder: approaching phase boundaries in high-entropy systems

Critical understanding of large amount of data leads to new descriptors for discovering entropic materials. The formalism uses the ensembled spectrum of sampled states near stability [Chem. Mater. 28, 6484 (2016)]…

In-situ Phase Equilibria and Thermal Expansion up to ~3400 ˚C

High-temperature materials are essential for the success of space travel. Here, we present how a conical nozzle levitator equipped with a CO2 laser can be coupled with in-situ diffraction experiments and calorimetry experiments to…

AI enabled Robotics

How does artificial intelligence enable space robotics and allow for space exploration via autonomous robots? What role does the construction and the material of the intelligent systems play in this context. With its Space Exploration Hall and the Research Team Space, the…

The challenges of living on the Moon: from simulations towards an extraterrestrial base

Recent projections see ESA’s Moon Village inhabited before 2030. In order to provide shelter to the astronauts, the ZARM is developing the concept of a habitat protype: The Moon and Mars Base Analog (MaMBA)…

Shape Memory Polymer Composites and Cosmic Ray Shielding Materials in Space Environment

Shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) and cosmic ray shielding (CRS) materials are advanced materials for space applications. To evaluate their behaviour in microgravity and the harsh space environment, a…

Building the ecosystem for space resource extraction and utilization

Although humans have not travelled beyond the Moon, yet, global space business (excluding the downstream services) exceeds nowadays €80bn a year. This business depends on carrying from Earth all required hardware or resources. The…

Hybrid Sandwich Structure for passive Crash Protection in a small Landing Probe

In Order to study the formation of the solar system and the evolution of life it is necessary to study smaller bodies like comets, asteroids and smaller moons. All these objects have a common property, they have very…

Cosmical Seeds_A dialogue between Art, Science, Technology and Space

The artist as a pollinator of ideas, experiments and insights. Belgian artist Frederik de Wilde is working at the interstice of art, science and technology. Frederik's talk will cover his artistic crossover praxis and a selection…

Artificial Solar Wind for Space Material Developments

Investigating materials under space environment conditions requires the artificial recreation of both corpuscular and electromagnetic radiation under ultra-high vacuum conditions. DLR’s Complex Irradiation Facility combines a proton and an…

Ceramic-based photonic materials for high-temperature applications

In this talk ceramic-based inverse opal photonic crystals produced via ALD will be presented and their behavior when exposed to high temperatures depicted. Special focus will be given on the refractory material mullite and the…

Nanocomposite ablative materials for thermal shields of re-entry vehicles

Carbon-phenolic ablative heat shields represent an effective solution for the thermal protection of reentry spacecraft and they are typically composed by a porous carbon preform partially filled by phenolic resin. In this…

Thermoelectrics for space applications - from defect study to structural design

Thermoelectric materials have been used in Radioisotrope Thermoelectric generators (RTG) as auxiliary power for space exploration. The energy efficiency is determined by the figure-of-merit zT, which is dependent on…

High-throughput with particle technology for materials discovery

High-throughput screening is a well-established method for scientific experimentation in chemistry and biology. The tests are designed to quickly obtain easily accessible data (called descriptors) that are related to the desired…

Enabling Space made in Germany

The upperstages of the European Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 launchers are built in Bremen under the prime industrial leadership of ArianeGroup. Ariane 6 is  now taking shape despite the Covid crisis while Ariane 5 succeeded its third launch of 2020 last August.  But the…

Flexible Diggers for Interacting with Granular Surfaces in Low Gravity

For spacecraft visiting rubble pile asteroids it is important to safely interact with the granular materials at the surface of these objects. We propose the use of flexible probes for digging into a granular material under…

Spacesuit Development and Testing Strategies

Spacesuits for planetary surface activities face a set of design challenges such as limited maintenance capabilities. Suit textiles for future lunar or Martian EVA’s need to have capabilities not required for Earth orbit operations, such as high abrasive…