The Rosetta mission, being undertaken by ESA, aims to research the history of how our Solar System was formed by investigating one of the oldest and most primordial of heavenly bodies, a comet. The mission consists of one orbiter and the Philae lander. DLR played a major role in building the lander and runs the lander control centre which is preparing for and overseeing the difficult task of landing on the comet on 12 November, a feat never before accomplished. livestream dlr esa

For the fourth time the AWI icebreaker Polarstern today reached the geographical North Pole. At 12:23 pm Central European Daylight saving time the ship crossed the northernmost point on the Earth, as Polarstern captain Stefan Schwarze and chief scientist Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Stein announced. RV Polarstern is currently on a two month long expedition in the Central Arctic. The geoscientific program will be completed by additional activities related to sea ice physics, oceanography and polar ecology. To read the current expedition expert, click here.

Russian cosmonauts have found traces of plankton and other microorganisms during cleaning the exterior of the ISS that may have been carried by air currents to the ISS. Some of these microorganisms seem to be able to survive in the space environment itself.

The experiment BIOMEX, led by the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, has arrived on the ISS. In 12 different chambers BIOMEX will promote the understanding of possible life on Mars by performing studies of simple organisms in simulated Martian soil, atmosphere and various radiation effects over more than 1.5 years outdoors the ISS.

During an expedition with the German research vessel Polarstern off the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, an international team of scientists discovered for the first time active methane seeps at the seafloor of the Southern Ocean. The finding was published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters. (read more)

The German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst has operate by remote control the Eurobot Rover from the ISS. In METERON project the teleoperation of robotic elements on the surface of manned missions in orbit is demonstrated, could enable new scenarios to explore the moon and Mars.

Gliders are autonomous measuring probes collecting data for marine research in the open ocean on predetermined courses between the sea surface and up to 1000 meters water depth. The fact that these devices can also operate precisely in the 20-meter shallow Baltic Sea was proven in an experiment by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel at the “Boknis Eck” time series station. The data obtained here have now been published in the international journal “Biogeosciences”. (read more)

During the Polarstern expedition PS 85 (ARK XXVIII / 2) in July 2014 navigation markers of AIRBUS DS were deployed on the seabed. Colleagues of HGF-MPG Group for Deep Sea Ecology and Technology of the Alfred Wegener Institute have mounted the navigation markers during their annual trip to the long-term deep-sea observatory „Hausgarten“ (eastern Fram Strait) to a bottom–lander and deployed the lander in about 2500 m water depth. The lander remains there for approximately 1 year and is brought back on board ship during the expedition in the summer 2015. After this long-term use the influence of the extreme deep-sea conditions on markers will examined to identify by whom and to what extent the markers were colonized. This study serves for the later use of markers for navigation of deep-sea caterpillar vehicles (crawler). As part of ROBEX these markers are to be used for determining the position and orientation of crawlers, specifically for VIATOR from GEOMAR, via image guidance during their mission on the seabed. The crawler illuminates the scene, the crawler camera takes pictures, from the pattern of the marks a software of AIRBUS DS then determines the relative position and orientation to the target. This target will be a bottom lander with a function of a „garage“ for the crawler. On this basis the control commands for the crawler are generated autonomously by means of a software by DFKI and AIRBUS DS and the vehicle runs autonomously to the lander. The Jacobs University is currently testing this navigation marker of AIRBUS DS while underwater missions of Wally II.

© AWI | New Airbus DS navigation marker for the development of underwater navigation methods

According to a Russian media report Russia wants to build an infrastructure from 2030 on the Moon, which will open up resources on the moon. The report is based on a concept study of the Russian space agency, and also provides for the involvement of private partners in the company.

On May 28 2014, the German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst launched from the spaceport in Baikonur to the ISS. The Soyuz capsule docked less than six hours later to the ISS. As part of the mission „Blue Dot“ Gerst will work six months on the space station and carry out more than 100 German, European and international experiments. Alexander Gerst has a piece of „whalebone“ in the luggage, which have given him on his special request on the journey colleagues from the deep sea research group at the AWI.