DLR MAKES CONTRACTS WITH RUSSIAN PARTNERS

         Köln/Moscow. Today the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Russia's Federal Space Agency (ROSKOSMOS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning the DLR "Verification on Orbit" program (OOV). The aim of the agreement is to implement projects dealing with technological test runs based on the German OOV program.

         The OOV program will help with the adjustment of the innovative technologies in space conditions and will demonstrate their functions.

         First of all we are talking about the development and launching of Germany's own TET satellite platform, a test carrier vehicle based on the BIRD satellite system, developed by DLR, and secondly about the installation of German brand new devices (not yet tested in space conditions) on other satellites.

         At the moment the best way of launching the TET is by using the Russian FREGAT upper stage. FREGAT is the central element of the Russian space program and can carry into orbit a wide range of different satellites using both SOYUZ and ZENIT space launchers. FREGAT'S developer and manufacturer is the NPO Lavochkin, a federal state unitary enterprise situated in Khimki (Moscow Region).

         The first German device which has been chosen for the united flight on the Russian radioastronomic satellite SPEKTR-R, is a space debris and micrometeoroid detector, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute of the Fast Process Dynamics and the Ernst Mach Institute in Freiburg. The agreement on this has been signed by the representatives of the NPO Lavochkin and DLR.

Contact information

DLR- Press Service

Andreas Shuetz

Phone: +49/30/67055130

Mobile: +49/171/3126466

Fax: +49/30/67055120

E-mail: andreas.schuetz@dlr.de