Shortly before Christmas, ESA BIC Bavaria conducted a workshop on Space Exploration for the Scholarship holders and graduates of the “German Trainee Program” (GTP) during their annual symposium at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen. The workshop, consisting of three challenges “Mars-“, “Moon-“ and “Satellite Challenge”, was supported by Dr Gerd Gruppe, board member of the DLR.The 40 participants with different professional backgrounds, such as technicians, controllers and jurists worked creatively on the different challenges and had amazing ideas like SpaceAged Whiskey. 
Keen on more fancy ideas? Read more about it in this article. The three challenges of the workshop treated different topics regarding Space Exploration. The focus of the Mars Challenge was on fighting boredom during the long flight to Mars of at least 200 days with favorable constellation of the planets. The participants of the workshop wanted to use the Mars exploration data, which is already available, in order to make manual exploration tasks on the long journey from the Marsonauts work out playfully. The Moon Challenge implied the issue “Moon Village” where people should live and work together in one place. The extraordinary place in this case was the moon with its unique conditions. But what did the inhabitants do by the end of the workshop? New leisure concepts, like a football game of astronauts against Earth residents, were the results of this workshop-challenge. In this concept, the human team on Earth plays football against Avatars being controlled by the humans on the other planet and the other way round. Maybe you’re the next one playing football against Avatars being controlled by a humans on the moon? The locating services of the European satellite navigation system Galileo have recently been made available to the users. Thus, in addition to GPS, Glonass and Beidoue, further locating systems are now available on the Earth. But what else could you do with satellites, except for Earth observation and satellite navigation? The third challenge dealt with this topic. The participants let their creativity take its course. SpaceAged products like Whiskey, meat products or wine could be the new must-have products.
ESA Business Incubation Centre Bavaria
The ESA BIC Bavaria seeks entrepreneurs using space technologies in a non-space environment. That does not mean rocket science, but applies to multiple application fields such as navigation and positioning, communications techniques, Earth observation, materials, processes, signals or robotics.
ESA’s Business Incubation Centre Bavaria was launched in 2009 and is since managed by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO). ESA BIC Bavaria and its renowned partners – DLR, Airbus Defence and Space, Fraunhofer IIS and Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft Berchtesgadener Land – provide startups with financial and technical support at four branch offices: Oberpfaffenhofen, Ottobrunn, Nuremberg and Berchtesgadener Land.
ESA BIC Bavaria has four selection rounds each year. The next application deadline for the incubation programme is 01 March 2017. Apply now for ESA BIC Bavaria
German newcomers ready for space
Scholarship holders and graduates of the “German Trainee Program” (GTP) met for their annual symposium at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) from 19 to 21 December 2016. The GTP is a joint program of DLR with the European Space Agency (ESA). The goal of the multi-day symposium is to experience, shape and discuss European and German space travel from the perspective of science, industry and politics. This year, the meeting took place at DLR’s Oberpfaffenhofen location, where the ESA Business Incubation Center Bavaria, OHB System AG Oberpfaffenhofen and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology (StMWI) had different contributing parts of the extensive programme.
