SOAPBOX SCIENCE STUTTGART

Natascha Bonidis speaks about her research. She knows that bringing Humans to Mars is not easy. Long missions, the long transfer, the martian environment, and then the non-existing space suit... We simply don't have one and have no idea how to build one... The thermal and Life-support systems technologies we have for Lunar spacesuits do not work on Mars; and Natascha Bonidis will let you know, how she is working on these questions.

Zamira Daw talks about AI in planes. She explains, what AI is and why AI is not magic. It is data. And AI has many possible applications in aircraft; however, trust must be built step by step.

Michelle Fini reports on collaboration between AI and human pilots in the cockpit. AI can bring additional safety and decision-support for the human pilots if it is trustworthy enough and the human holds the final authority. Who should make the final decision? Michelle Fini provides the answer.

Kim-Sophie explains why we may soon have too many satellites in Earth's orbit and why it might make sense to move even closer to Earth. Her work focuses on the models we need to understand to make this possible and how we can build a facility to simulate the conditions for the satellites and test their behavior.

Sophie Förste will explain, how space travel can become more sustainable. Today, rockets either land in the sea or are specifically (but expensively!) designed to be reusable. Intermediate solutions, such as partial reuse or recycling, have hardly been researched, even though they could be the future of sustainable space flight. Sophie Förste is working on solutions to this problem and will provide an update.

Julia Grill explains how spacecrafts travel to Moon, Mars, and beyond. Unlike rockets launching from Earth, spacecrafts in space are able to use electric propulsion accelerating efficiently over long periods with less propellant. Julia Grill will show how these thrusters work, how their trajectories differ from traditional rockets, and why they are a key technology for future exploration of the Solar System.

Elizabeth Gutiérrez researches how satellites could use the tiny amount of air in very low Earth orbit as fuel for propulsion. To achieve this, she develops and tests a special plasma thruster. She studies how charged particles move and how magnetic fields can make the thruster more efficient. The goal is to keep satellites in space for longer and make future space missions in very low Earth orbit more sustainable. 

Andy Hinkel is working on a (small) satellite with a very young team. In xyr talk Andy Hinkel will convince you that soft skills matter much more than one might initially think. Knowledge management demands a low entrance threshold to be maintained and in the end some dependencies are out of your hand.

Mariann Homolya conducts research on complex systems in safety-critical environments, such as in aircrafts. She explains her research with the example of the Stammstreckensperrung. Because even if there is a problem with the tracks or the signals, you still want to reach your destination. And how can this be achieved fully automatically and with the highest level of reliability?

We see digital models and 3D representations of our surroundings more and more often in our daily lives. But where do they actually come from? And how can they be created with millimeter accuracy? These models are based on point clouds, which can be captured using terrestrial laser scanning, for example. We’d like to explain what this is and how it works.

Marlin Kanzow discusses tethered satellite systems. These systems are chaotic, prone to failure, and can only be fully tested and evaluated on orbit. Compared to other state-of-the-art satellite systems, however, they offer very interesting capabilities – provided one can control the chaos.

Vanessa Tietz explains what it means to develop and configure a safety-critical system and how model-based system development methods can contribute to safer aircraft and improved development processes.

Franziska Tuttas explains how molecules move and what that has to do with astronaut safety. As a spacecraft travels through Earth’s atmosphere, it gets very hot. This is due to the movement of the gas particles in our air. Franziska Tuttas explains how this mechanism works and how it is being studied.