Small satellite conference 2023 in Berlin

From the stu­dents' per­spec­tive, at­tend­ing the Small Satel­lite Con­fer­ence 2023 played a cru­cial role in dis­cover­ing the key role that Ger­many plays within the small satel­lite indus­try and re­search in Eu­rope. Dif­ferent organ­iza­tions with a varie­ty of pro­jects helped the stu­dents of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram"Satellite Technology" to un­der­stand cur­rent and future trends. In addi­tion to the presenta­tions, two inter­active panel dis­cussions were held with key repre­senta­tives of the Ger­man small satel­lite field. One focus of the panels was on the fi­nanc­ing of re­search and de­velopment of small satel­lites through fund­ing dis­tributed by the Ger­man Space Agency. Other rele­vant topics were the active avoidance and dis­posal of space de­bris, the crea­tion of a roadmap for small satel­lite tech­nolo­gies and the op­por­tuni­ties of­fered by small satel­lite re­search in deep space.

The excur­sion, spon­sored by the Elite Net­work of Ba­varia, ena­bled stu­dents to en­gage in lively dis­cussions with im­portant fig­ures from re­search, in­dustry and poli­tics dur­ing the get-together and the coffee breaks. New con­tacts were made and career op­por­tuni­ties dis­cuss­ed. The stu­dents were able to gain an in­sight into small satel­lite opera­tions out­side the uni­versi­ty envi­ron­ment.

Text: Carolin Bösch, Maximilian Gmöhling, Pascal Meyer, “Satellite Technology”