Professor Roger Förstner (Space Technology) and Professor Thomas Pany (Satellite Navigation) have acquired funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy for the Infrared Astronomy Satellite Swarm Interferometry (IRASSI II) project.
IRASSI II will examine the execution of a mission involving five space telescopes. These will fly in formation and detect objects in the far infrared region. For this purpose, heterodyne interferometry is being used. This means that distances between phase centers of telescopes can be measured to the order of one micrometer while the relative distance between satellites is a few meters to one kilometer. This is a joint project of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Menlo-Systems GmbH, and the Institute for Flight Guidance at Technische Universität Braunschweig. The Institute of Space Technology and Space Applications at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich is responsible for research work pertaining to safe formation flight, high-precision structure stabilization, and absolute and relative navigation.
This project has now been completed.
Project period: 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019
Funding by: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and DLR Space Administration