Students from the University of Cologne (UoC) and the University of Bonn (UB) had the exciting opportunity to visit the Cologne facility of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) two weeks ago.
The visit took place within the framework of the lectures “Performance Engineering” by Achim Basermann at the UoC and “Scalable Machine Learning for Astrophysical Surveys” by Alexander Rüttgens at the UB. In addition, members of the Sonderforschungsbereich 1601 at UoC and UB, who investigate the environment of massive stars throughout cosmic time, were invited.
The first stops were the LUNA building and the MUSC control center. LUNA is a globally unique moon simulation facility to train astronautical and robotic missions in a realistic environment, whereas MUSC incorporates the ISS control center and the control center for the exploration of small bodies.
After this exciting start, three DLR employees presented two different topics on which the facility is currently working.
Patrick Lenz talked about space safety and introduced space debris which deals with all human-made objects in Earth orbit that no longer serve a function as well as the space-flight library BACARDI.
The two following talks introduced simulation softwares. Christian Bleffert spoke about the helicopter simulation software MAECOsim whereas Sven Goldberg presented the software library TiGL, which can be used to model aircraft geometry.
DLR is continuously seeking young talent and was pleased with the strong interest and lively discussions surrounding the presented topics.
