Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)
Key technology:
Engine demonstrator testing
Laser plasma ignition
AI failure detection
Company summary:
Making tomorrow’s spaceflight more efficient, cost-effective and safer with innovative propulsion systems and environmentally friendly fuels – that’s what around 250 DLR employees are working towards at the Lampoldshausen site. For over 60 years, they have been researching, developing and testing innovative technologies for chemical space propulsion systems on a test bed infrastructure unrivalled anywhere in Europe. With scientific expertise, a unique infrastructure and openness to the use of forward-looking and cost-reducing technologies from the fields of digitalisation and artificial intelligence, Lampoldshausen has evolved into the European research and technology location for liquid chemical space propulsion. Hydrogen has been an integral part of European spaceflight for more than four decades. Today, researchers at the DLR site in Lampoldshausen are working on transferring this historically acquired knowledge to the energy and mobility sectors. In doing so, DLR researchers are pushing the production of ‘green’ hydrogen as well as the expansion of a research and development platform to test hydrogen technologies in practice, develop them further and bring them into application. Close cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises as well as other scientific institutions enables rapid scaling and fast industrial implementation.
Technology/expertise for ENLIGHTEN project:
DLR is supporting ENLIGHTEN with three major activities. First, the final tests of the integrated technology demonstrator will take place at DLR’s P5 test facility. Its test engineers are already preparing for this demanding test campaign. Second, DLR researchers are working on laser plasma ignition for oxygen/hydrogen high pressure rocket combustion chambers. In addition to those activities, DLR scientists are also participating in ENLIGHTEN’s AI activities, where they develop AI-based algorithms for engine failure detection at the test bench or later during flight.
Note: within Enlighten programme, DLR is participating as scientific project participant.
