High Interest at the Space Tech Expo in Bremen in Europe’s Largest Satellite Program

6,000 visitors, over 600 exhibitors, packed exhibition halls each of the three days: The Space Tech Expo in Bremen, which concluded on November 16th, is being hailed as a resounding success by many companies. This sentiment is echoed by us at DLR GfR, which attracted numerous interested parties in Bremen with its flagship “Galileo,” Europe’s largest space program.

Walter Päffgen, CEO of DLR GfR, drew an extremely positive conclusion: “Direct personal contacts simply cannot be replaced. I am very pleased that, at the Space Tech Expo, we were able to showcase our portfolio of services in numerous discussions and initiate promising new contacts.”

Our exhibition team impressed at the joint booth with bavAIRia e.V., the association of Bavarian players in the aerospace industry, with an impressive display of their extensive expertise. Experts from the fields of Team System Engineering, Flight Operations, Ground Operations, NAVCAST, and GSOp Project Management were present in Bremen as sought-after conversational partners.

Attendees were particularly interested in the diverse business opportunities in the emerging downstream sector. Of note was the presentation by our Service Engineer and NAVCAST expert, Jan Gebhardt. His topic, “Application of NAVCAST in the UTM sector – Bringing GNSS downstream markets to innovative sectors,” garnered special interest. NAVCAST, a web-based highly precise positioning service, focuses mainly on the GNSS downstream market in areas such as shipping, railway transport, agriculture, and drone applications. It represents a future market with impressive revenue forecasts of around 200 billion euros in the next decade.

At our booth in Hall 6 in Bremen, we also garnered attention with an unusual eye-catcher: A new exhibit showcased the work in the Galileo Control Center in a captivating three-dimensional video installation that seemed within arm’s reach – all without the need for 3D glasses. This impressive display even prompted hurried expo attendees to pause and marvel for a moment.

About DLR GfR:
Founded in 2008 as a subsidiary of the German Aerospace Center, DLR GfR mbH is responsible for managing Europe’s largest space constellation, the European satellite navigation system GALILEO, at the Galileo Control Center (GCC-D) in Oberpfaffenhofen on behalf of the European Commission. Thanks to the technical infrastructure realized by DLR GfR, the company ensures a service availability of 99.99 percent. The constellation operation services of DLR GfR at GCC-D encompass 24/7 routine operations and maintenance of the 26 Galileo satellites and associated ground segment infrastructure. From GCC-D, the operation of the globally distributed Galileo infrastructure, both on the ground and in orbit, is organized across all mission phases. This includes mission planning and flight dynamics services, efficient team training and management, reliable configuration monitoring, and global service-level tracking and monitoring. With an international team of more than 240 experts from 24 nations, DLR GfR provides its customers with reliable and secure spaceflight services and proactively steers the Galileo project into the future.

About bavAIRia e.V.:
bavAIRia e.V. is the association of Bavarian stakeholders in civil and military aviation, aerospace, and space applications, entrusted by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development, and Energy with the management of the Aerospace Cluster. bavAIRia’s goal is to identify Bavaria’s core competencies in aviation, aerospace, and space applications and to network the key players more closely to enhance the global competitiveness of these industries.