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German Aerospace Center (DLR) – bringing research to life in aeronautics, space, energy, transport and security. German 🇩🇪 ➤ @germanaerospacecenter
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Idefix is a demonstration of the power of teamwork – within DLR and with our collaborators around the world 🤝
No mission gets to Mars alone, and Idefix is no exception. Its job within the MMX mission is to scout the surface of Phobos, helping the team to select a scientifically interesting site where the spacecraft can land safely and collect samples. 🌍🧪
The rover itself is also the product of collaboration. Idefix was created by several DLR institutes, together with CNES and external contributors. The COVID-19 pandemic also influenced its development: the remote-working skills the team developed during that time helped them collaborate on the rover at a distance, although they still value meeting face to face whenever possible.
28 Sep 2026
Welcome to the #MoonOnEarth! 🌔
LUNA, the joint DLR/ESA lunar analogue facility, is officially open! The research centre will be key to developing and advancing space technologies, as well as preparing astronauts and robots for missions to the Moon. 🧑🚀🤖
The 700-square-meter hall is designed to replicate lunar surface conditions. It is covered with lunar-like regolith, with rocks and boulders modelled after lunar geology. 🪨 A solar simulator is also present to recreate the lighting conditions on the Moon. ☀️
In addition, an area three meters below ground level can be frozen to simulate hidden ice 🧊, allowing researchers to test drilling techniques.
#LUNA is located on the DLR site in Cologne, next to ESA's European Astronaut Centre. It will be available to various institutions and space agencies wishing to conduct experiments and test campaign.
26 Sep 2024
🫧 What does air look like when a drone takes off?
To find out, we flew a quadcopter through a room filled with hundreds of thousands of tiny, helium-filled soap bubbles. 🧼
The aim was to see how the air moves around the rotors when a drone hovers, takes off and flies forwards, and what happens when it flies close to the ground.
🌬️ The bubbles were small and light enough to follow the air almost perfectly. As the drone flew through the bubble cloud, five high-speed cameras captured 3000 frames per second. DLR researchers then tracked the path of each bubble, revealing the invisible airflow in 3D.
🌪️ Each of the four rotors creates its own swirling vortices, which meet beneath the drone. Close to the ground, the air spreads outwards and can even shoot back up under the drone like a fountain.
Understanding these vortices will help make drones, air taxis and other vertical take-off and landing aircraft more stable, more efficient, quieter and safer. 🚁
05 Nov 2026
First look at the aftermath of a deliberate asteroid crash 🪨
Europe’s Hera mission has caught its first close-ups of Didymos, the asteroid system NASA’s DART mission ‘visited’ in 2022. You know, the one it deliberately crashed into? 💥
For anyone who missed it: DART slammed into Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos in our Solar System, to test whether we could nudge an asteroid off course and one day use this to protect Earth from future threats. And it worked: the impact shortened Dimorphos’s orbit by about 30 minutes.
Now it’s Hera’s job to get a good look at the crash site and investigate exactly how that planetary-defence test changed Dimorphos.
Hera’s Asteroid Framing Camera, whose science is led by DLR, captured these first images. So far, they mainly show the larger asteroid Didymos (which DART didn’t hit) while Dimorphos is still hiding in the shadows.
But not for long! On 25 November, more images will be released, shedding light on Dimorphos and the impact site.
Stay tuned! 👀
Chelyabinsk video: Aleksandr Ivanov, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Source: https://w.wiki/EgzJ
05 Nov 2026
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… our uncrewed high-altitude platform! 😎
HAP-alpha is a solar-powered aircraft designed to fly at altitudes of up to 20 kilometres, in the lower stratosphere. It weighs just 138 kilograms and has a 27-metre wingspan.
High-altitude platforms like HAP-alpha offer a sustainable alternative to satellites for remote sensing and communication. They are also more cost-effective to build and launch, and can be landed, undergo maintenance and be reused for other missions.
The platform’s first flight happened at a low altitude on 2 September 2026. It lasted around 70 minutes – enough time to test various manoeuvres and collect initial validation data for flight dynamics models.
Higher-altitude flights are now planned over unpopulated or extremely sparsely populated areas, such as the sea.
03 Nov 2026
🛰️As the MMX spacecraft departs Earth, another has just paid a return visit, despite launching in 2023. So why was JUICE, Europe’s mission to study Jupiter’s icy and potentially habitable moons, back at Earth? 👀
Flying straight to Jupiter would take a huge rocket and vats of fuel. Instead, JUICE takes a looping route with several gravity-assist flybys: the gravity of Earth (and the Moon and Venus) provides nearly free speed and steering.
On 28 September, it passed within 8,640 km of Earth, high above the Indian Ocean, gaining 3.5 km/s and changing course by 20° while using barely any fuel. Along the way, JUICE snapped these pictures with its high-res JANUS camera, built with help from DLR.
Next stop:
🌍 Earth (again) in January 2029 – then Jupiter in July 2031. 🛰️
26 Oct 2026
🚀 Godspeed, Idefix®!
Our Idefix® rover lifted off with JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission from the Tanegashima Space Center on 19 October 2026 at 21:41 CEST, on board a powerful H3 rocket. 🥳
The rover was developed, and will be operated, together with our colleagues at the French space agency CNES.
🛰️MMX will study Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos, and bring a sample from Phobos back to Earth in 2031. Its findings could help answer a long-standing question: are the Martian moons captured asteroids, debris from a giant Martian impact or leftovers from Mars’ formation?
Idefix® is due to land on Phobos around the turn of 2028/2029, set to become the first human-made object ever to set wheel on Mars’ larger moon. After landing, the rover will autonomously right itself and face the Sun. 🌞
It will explore the surface for 100 days and help characterise the ground, operated from control centres at DLR in Cologne and CNES in Toulouse 🇩🇪🇫🇷 Its findings will help the main MMX spacecraft land and take its samples.
Congratulations to everyone at @mmx_jaxa , @cnes_france and DLR who made this possible. 🥳🥳
Next stop: Martian orbit! 🔴
20 Oct 2026
Fire, thunder and a trail of light through the clouds. 🚀What a beautiful launch.
MMX is on its way to Mars, carrying our rover @idefix_rover_mmx to Phobos. Thank you @mmx_jaxa and the H3 rocket. Gute Reise Idefix®! We’ll speak soon 🌍
Song: No Time for Caution - Hans Zimmer
20 Oct 2026
Phobos, we’ll soon be on our way 🥔😨
Tonight, our Idefix® rover sets off on its journey to Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. Named after the Greek god of fear, it is a strange place: at only 22 kilometres across on average, its surface area wouldn’t even cover Berlin twice. With gravity less than one thousandth of Earth’s, no spacecraft has ever landed there. (Two have tried - but failed).
Idefix® will be the first. It will touch down ahead of the MMX main spacecraft, scout the surface and help prepare the way for MMX to land and collect samples.
Why go at all? Researchers still don’t know how Mars’ moons formed. Are they captured asteroids, debris from a giant impact on Mars, or leftover material from when the Red Planet formed? Samples from Phobos should help answer that question and more. 🔴
Credit: NASA JPL-Caltech University of Arizona
19 Oct 2026
Are you following Idefix® yet? 👀
Our/CNES’s rover is about to travel to Phobos, and you can follow every step of its journey at @idefix_rover_mmx – from launch and cruise to becoming the first rover to leave tracks on a Martian moon.
Idefix®, developed by DLR and @cnes_france , is set to launch aboard JAXA’s MMX mission on Monday (@mmx_jaxa), 19 October at 21:41 CEST from the Tanegashima Space Center. 🇯🇵
👉 Make sure you follow @idefix_rover_mmx before liftoff!
18 Oct 2026
Sometimes all it takes is an otherworldly doctor. 🧑⚕️
In space, a doctor’s appointment is not a one-off consultation, but a trusting relationship built up over many months. Being a space doctor is a round-the-clock responsibility. Bimba Hoyer, Flight Surgeon, has monitored Sophie Adenot’s (@soph_astro) health closely for the past 8 months, acting as her medical link between Earth and space. Now back on Earth, Adenot has been accompanied by Bimba back to Cologne, for the special space rehabilitation programme.
Microgravity affects the human body on various fronts:
👁️ Vision health – fluid shifts flatten the eyeball and swell the optic nerve, causing lasting vision changes
🤸♀️ Coordination and mobility – important muscles, such as in the back, are barely used in microgravity, and astronauts often experience impaired upper-body movement after landing
🩸Blood pressure and distribution – in weightlessness, the cardiovascular system weakens, since it is not stimulated by movements like standing up
The programme focuses on readapting the astronaut to Earth’s conditions, considering these aspects and more. And so, Adenot’s εpsilon mission is now concluding after a safe return, with Bimba ensuring that over these next few weeks the French ESA astronaut reconnects with Earth, physically and mentally.
13 Oct 2026
Bon voyage, Idefix®! 🚀
Our team has a few last words for the little rover before it heads to the Martian moon Phobos aboard @mmx_jaxa’s MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission.
Featuring:
👨🚀Christian Krause, team lead
👩🚀Mona Plettenberg, MMX rover operations and science communication
👨🚀Henrik Muders, MMX rover operations engineer
👨🚀Kagan Kayal, MMX rover operations engineer
👨🚀Hendrik-Joachim Peetz, risk manager
👨🚀Felix Constantin Passenberg, software engineer
Special guest: Bert, one of our four-legged walking robots from the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics. Bert is designed to test energy-efficient walking for future missions in space.
Launch is planned for 19 October at 21:41 CEST from Tanegashima, Japan.
Go boldly, @idefix_rover_mmx! 🥹🥳
#goodluckmmx
13 Oct 2026
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