INNOspace Masters

5 February 2016

The world’s economies are on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. Driven by digitalisation and marked by the merging of the real and virtual worlds, traditional value chains are in the process of dissolving.

This is resulting in new potential, including for the new space economy – especially when it comes to the intelligent, real-time, horizontal and vertical integration of people, objects, and machines.

The first INNOspace Masters idea competition addressed European companies, start-ups, universities, or non-university research institutions (or even consortia of organisations) whose projects involve forward-thinking transfers of technologies and expertise from other industries to the space sector (“spin-ins”).

From 15 September 2015 to 31 January 2016 the INNOspace Masters competition was in a variety of categories, looking for solutions and plans at different stages of innovative maturity (utility models and demonstrators > market-ready prototypes > ready-to-use solutions) that can leverage the potential of smart integration to improve the efficiency and customer orientation of the space sector, particularly in satellite manufacturing.

The winners of the first competition round will be awarded at a festive awards ceremony on 4 May 2016 and can look forward to technological and business-related services from first-rate partners, along with extensive marketing/communication activities and networking contacts, based on their chosen category and the innovativeness and maturity of their concepts. This support is designed to aid them in realising their ideas quickly and as close to their original vision as possible.

INNOspace Masters is a new idea competition being operated by DLR Space Administration (part of the German Space Center, DLR). The competition is embedded in DLR Space Administration’s INNOspace® initiative, which promotes innovation and new markets. Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, an experienced specialist in organising space innovation competitions, has been tasked with carrying out INNOspace Masters by DLR.