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The 52nd Paris Air Show is taking place at Le Bourget air field on June 19 – 25, 2017. Once again, Antwerp Space will participate in this event, at the OHB booth (number C318) located at the joint German stand in Hall 2C.

Antwerp Space nominated as most promising export company of the year! The event will take place Friday the 17th of March 2017 at the Hilton Hotel in Antwerp.

From Monday March 13 till Friday March 17, the Master of Product Development of the University of Antwerp organizes the INNOVATION WORKSHOPS for the graduating Masterstudents of the programs: PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (University of Antwerp) and PRODUCT DESIGN (Luca School of arts – Genk)

Companies from various sectors face us with their future challenges.The teams of students take on the creative challenge of translating the themes to future product concepts.They creatively explore new features and formulate a new vision for the business or products of a company.

Also the exchange of views and ideas between the industrial partners leads to a cross-fertilization beyond normal thinking patterns.

The results of previous years were, in any way a success with a range of product ideas and business concepts for more than 50 companies on diverse themes.

This year Verhaert New Products & Services made a connection between Innovation Workshops and Flemish companies in the aerospace sector.

Verhaert is the Belgian partner for ESA’s (European Space Agency) Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) with the mission to help companies and entrepreneurs to innovate and create new products and business based on space technology. (www.spacetechnology.be)

So “Space 4 Earth“ became the theme for Innovation Workshops 2017; how to create future concepts, applications or products starting from space know-how & technologies.

Many existing technologies and innovations have their origins in space. Examples include telecommunications, meteorology and navigation, which have taken a relevant place in our daily lives. With high-end technologies, knowledge and applications aerospace will remain a bottomless source of inspiration for innovation.

This event is fully supported by BlueSpace, the new consortium made up of Verhaert, imec and VITO to support entrepreneurs in their activities to innovate with space technologies.

• 22/02/2017 Universiteit Antwerpen
• 24/02/2017 VTK Leuven
• 28/02/2017 Universiteit Gent
• 01/03/2017 VUB Brussel
• 09/03/2017 De Nayer
• ​14/03/2017 IEEE Gent

Antwerp Space nominated for Trends Gazellen 2017 province Antwerp…

Antwerp, 26 October 2016 – Today Antwerp Space has officially opened its new clean room, in the presence of Belgian State Secretary for Science Policy Elke Sleurs and Mayor of Antwerp Bart De Wever. In this ultra-modern, secured work space the Antwerp based company will be making components for prestigious international space projects.

Antwerp Space’s new clean room in Hoboken (with a ground surface of 100 m² and a height of 3 m) is designated category ISO 8. It will offer a protected environment in which the level of dust particles, the temperature (around 22°) and the relative humidity (about 55 %) are strictly managed, to avoid e.g. corrosion or electrical breakdowns.

Prestigious space projects

Starting November 2016, Antwerp Space will be using its new clean room for the production and integration of components for key prestigious space programmes for the European Space Agency (ESA).

ExoMars, a collaboration between ESA and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, consists of two missions to Mars. The first – an orbiter and a lander – was launched on 14 March 2016 and has just arrived at the Red Planet. Part two of the mission – a surface platform which will land on Mars and a rover that will explore the planet’s surface – is planned for 2020 and it will be flown to Mars on board a carrier module. Antwerp Space is responsible for the communication subsystem of the carrier module.

One of the scientific instruments on board the surface platform is LaRa (Lander Radioscience). The LaRa mission was designed by a scientific team from the Royal Observatory of Belgium and will be engineered and delivered by Antwerp Space. It consists of a sophisticated communication equipment transmitting from Mars to Earth. The analysis of the radio signals characteristics received on Earth will enable the scientists to improve our knowledge of the Red Planet’s orientation and rotation, and ultimately understand better its internal structure. LaRa will be the first Belgian instrument to ever land on the Red Planet.

Antwerp Space is also responsible for designing, assembling and testing the communication subsystem on the JUICE spacecraft. JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) is planned for launch in 2022 and arrival at Jupiter in 2029. It will spend at least three years conducting detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. It will be the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon (Ganymede) of a giant planet.

Finally, Antwerp Space is also developing ARGO, a highly innovative modem. The first instance of this modem will be used in a new Ka band data relay terminal communication terminal to be attached to the ESA Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2018.

The equipment developed by Antwerp Space consists of an advanced modem that uses a high-performing encoding technology for the very first time in Europe. This modem will enable faster communication from the ISS to the Earth via the new European Data Relay Satellite System (EDRS).

“The inauguration of this clean room means a milestone in the history of Antwerp Space. Our facilities are now meeting all standards to integrate and test all kinds of satellite subsystems and components. This investment allows us to continue our ambitious plans for the future” confirms Oliver Salisch, Managing Director of Antwerp Space.

“The investment made by Antwerp Space for this new clean room is a tangible sign of the company’s ambition for future space programmes. I look forward to the role Antwerp Space will play in current and future key ESA missions”, said Secretary of State Elke Sleurs.

“As mayor of the city of Antwerp, I take great pride in knowing that a local company is providing its expertise and know-how for European missions to Mars and Jupiter. Hopefully someday people will associate our city not only with its port and the diamond trade, but also with its role in space exploration”, also said Mayor of Antwerp Bart De Wever.

About Antwerp Space:

Antwerp Space, a subsidiary of listed technology group OHB SE (ISIN DE0005936124), is part of OHBs Business Unit Space Systems and provides expertise as well as system solutions for European space programs and commercial space applications worldwide. Antwerp Space develops systems and satellite equipment, satellite ground control stations for the reception of data from observation satellites and for the control of spacecrafts, as well as test systems used during the integration of satellites.

Contact Antwerp Space:

Vanessa Peeters
Corporate Communications
phone: +32 (0) 3 829 50 07
E-Mail: vanessa.peeters@antwerpspace.be
www.antwerpspace.be

Contact OHB:

Martin Stade
Corporate Communications
phone: +49 (0) 421 2020 620
E-Mail: pr@ohb.de
www.ohb.de

Antwerp Space N.V., a subsidiary of the listed space and technology group OHB SE (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124), signed a contract with ESA for supplying the instrument called LaRa (Lander Radioscience) to fly to Mars on board the ExoMars 2020 mission.

ExoMars is the space programme consisting of two missions to orbit and land on Mars, executed in cooperation by ESA and Roskosmos, the Russian space agency. The first mission called ExoMars 2016, consisting of an orbiter and a lander, which was launched on 14 March 2016, is still on its way to Mars and scheduled to arrive there on October 16th, with the decent-module landing on Mars on 19th of October. The second ExoMars-spacecraft is scheduled for a launch in July 2020. It includes a surface platform that will actually land on the planet and a rover that will explore the martian surface.

The scientific payload integrated to the surface platform will consist of several instruments thereof two European. LaRa, a Belgian experiment conceived by a scientific team from the Royal Observatory of Belgium is one of the two European instruments selected for the mission. It consists of a sophisticated communication equipment transmitting from Mars to Earth. The analysis of the radio signals characteristics received on Earth will enable the scientists to derive the scientific data. It will be the first time that Belgian equipment will land on the surface of Mars.

LaRa will deliver the most high-precision measurement of the Red Planet’s orientation and rotation, helping to understand better its internal structure. It will also be able to investigate the influence of the redistribution of masses, such as the migration of ice from the polar caps to the atmosphere, and its impact on the rotation of Mars.

“We are very proud that the realisation of the first Belgian instrument to ever land on the surface of Mars has been entrusted to Antwerp Space. We are thrilled to participate in this ambitious endeavour and look forward to the scientific results LaRa will provide. This contract is also a testimony to Antwerp Space´ know-how and our engineers ability to deliver high precision instruments for world-class scientific missions”, says Roberto Aceti, Managing Director of Antwerp Space N.V.

“LaRa will help us to understand why our sister planet Mars has not evolved similarly to Earth. Mars’ internal structure may still be hot enough to contain a liquid core. The deep interior of a planet can be measured by its rotation. An everyday example of the influence of the physical state of the interior on the rotation is that raw (liquid) and cooked (solid) eggs rotate differently. LaRa will allow us to observe the rotation and orientation of Mars and therewith identify its core and evolution. I look forward to receiving the data”, says Véronique Dehant, Team Coordinator for the LaRa experiment at the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB).

The second ExoMars mission with the LaRa-instrument onboard set off 2020 towards our neighbour planet. For ExoMars 2020 OHB will also design the so-called Carrier, which will bring the rover to Mars. In addition, OHB is responsible for a couple of subsystems e.g. the SPDS (sample preparation and distribution system) inside the Mars rover. LaRa will then be operational for more than a year, allowing a sufficient collection of science data.

About Antwerp Space:

Antwerp Space, a subsidiary of listed technology group OHB SE (ISIN DE0005936124), is part of OHBs Business Unit Space Systems and provides expertise as well as system solutions for European space programs and commercial space applications worldwide. Antwerp Space develops systems and satellite equipment, satellite ground control stations for the reception of data from observation satellites and for the control of spacecrafts, as well as test systems used during the integration of satellites.

Contact Antwerp Space:

Vanessa Peeters
Corporate Communications
phone: +32 (0) 3 829 50 07
E-Mail: vanessa.peeters@antwerpspace.be
www.antwerpspace.be

Contact OHB:

Martin Stade
Corporate Communications
phone: +49 (0) 421 2020 620
E-Mail: pr@ohb.de
www.ohb.de