Day five of the Bremen Space Tour and the delegation ventured onto Pasadena/Los Angeles.
First stop was NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA’s facility that carries out robotic space and Earth science missions. JPL helped open the Space Age and continues to spear world-class innovation.
One delegate described the experience as:
“The A-Team space, where design thinking is used to generate new ideas for science missions.”
The delegation was able to visit the control rooms where they control spacecraft such as the Mars Rover, Curiosity.
Some signs within the control room for the various stations that control the spacecraft
“I loved the control room”
“I liked getting to know the programs and being able to talk to the people”
In the evening, Bremen Invest held a panel discussion “Commercial space stories from the US to Europe” which contained a series of exchanges on the topic of “new space” in each region. Panellists contained representatives from Virgin Galactic, Spaceport LA, Starburst Accelerator, OHB and Airbus Defence & Space. They discussed a range of cultural differences, funding initiatives, risk factors and more in each region.
“I liked discovering that LA commercial space has a distinctly different business flavour in comparison to SFC and SV.”
The delegation will conclude their last working day on Friday by visiting SpaceX, The Aerospace Corporation and finally XPRIZE before heading back to Europe.