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How a data space makes aerospace more efficient

Bremen is not called the “City of Space” for nothing. After all, the city is an important location in the aerospace sector. With the COOPERANTS project, researchers from U Bremen Research Alliance member institutions are helping to ensure that this remains the case. They have developed secure data rooms that make construction and research projects in aerospace more efficient and boost competitiveness.

Steffen Planthaber sits in the control center, a narrow room that is open to the front. A three-dimensional model of a robot appears on the screen of his laptop. The actual robot is standing less than ten meters away from him, all four wheels firmly planted on the sandy floor of the space exploration hall at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). “SherpaTT” is the name of the 150-kilogram rover intended for use in space, which can easily overcome small obstacles with its spider-like legs.

SherpaTT has already been used on various moon-like surfaces in Lanzarote, in the desert of Morocco, and in the US state of Utah. And if Planthaber wanted to, he could also send it up the steep crater landscape in the DFKI’s exploration hall, which simulates a landscape at the moon’s south pole.

The model of the robot on his screen is part of a digital twin software that the computer scientist played a key role in developing. The idea is that one day, a robot like SherpaTT will actually be on the moon or Mars. In the meantime, the team is working on how data collected during such a mission can be made available to other researchers or companies working in space travel as quickly, securely, reliably, and trustworthily as possible, while tailoring this to individual needs.

Read more on U Bremen Research Alliance