OHB awarded contract by DLR Space Administration for the technological management of technologies for the Heinrich Hertz satellite mission

OHB System AG, a subsidiary of listed technology group OHB SE (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124), has been awarded a contract by DLR Space Administration to oversee numerous new communications technologies. These technologies, designed by different industry companies and institutes, will be integrated in the Heinrich Hertz satellite so that they can be tested in space. The contract for satellite-side technology management is worth a total of around EUR 10 million.

Under the national Heinrich Hertz satellite mission, DLR Space Administration is working on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy to perform scientific tests on the new communications technologies in orbit over an extended period of time. The purpose is to “test the behavior of these new technologies under extreme conditions in space,” explains Dominik Lang, Director of Telecommunications Satellites and Head of Heinrich Hertz satellite project at OHB.

This in-orbit verification process will be demonstrating the suitability of the technologies for future satellite missions, thus substantially reducing the risk of failure. In addition, the Heinrich Hertz mission will be offering numerous research institutions as well as industry a platform for conducting a multitude of scientific/technical experiments.

Under the technology management contract for the Heinrich Hertz satellite mission, OHB is responsible for the scientific/technical aspects of the technology orders. This entails responsibility for the technical and formal project milestones as well as formal acceptance testing of the hardware for integration in the Heinrich Hertz satellite. One of OHB’s primary tasks is to ensure that the interfaces of the technologies to be tested are compatible with the Heinrich Hertz satellite.

About the Heinrich Hertz satellite mission:

The purpose of the Heinrich Hertz satellite mission is to test new types of satellite communications technologies under real conditions in space and to safeguard national system competence in geostationary communications satellites. Named in honor of an important German physicist, the Heinrich Hertz satellite is to demonstrate German skills under real conditions with respect to platforms for geostationary satellites as well as payloads.

In this way, Heinrich Hertz will be making a crucial contribution to advancing space technology for communications satellites. This innovativeness is being backed by the excellent partnership forged amongst research institutes, universities and the German space industry. The mission offers all parties involved an opportunity for performing numerous scientific/technical experiments in space.

In addition to the scientific/technical aspects of the mission, Heinrich Hertz will also be providing the German Federal Ministry of Defense with additional independent hosted payload capacity. In this connection, an agreement was entered into in 2011 between the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the German Federal Ministry of Defense assigning DLR responsibility for coordinating these mission components.