ILA 2012 - Highlights
A joint ESA/BDLI/DLR space pavilion brought together key players from international space agencies and industry, professionals and general public interested to discover the latest aerospace developments and new business opportunities.
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Philipp Rösler, German Minister of Economics and Technology, Waldemar Pawlak, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Affairs of the Republic of Poland inaugurated the airshow on Tuesday 11 September.
A special ILA feature was the Space Day on Wednesday which focused on crucial issues and offered the opportunity to discuss challenges and successes of international, European and German space activities. Under the patronage of Dr Philipp Rösler, German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, the conference included the heads of the main national space agencies of Europe and Russia, the Director General of ESA, the Vice President for Space of the German aerospace industries association, the Director of the Polish Space Research Centre and Peter Hintze, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and Federal Government Coordinator of German Aerospace Policy.
A press conference by the ESA DG and a Press Briefing on Galileo were attended by a large range of journalists.
Other highlights included an Earth Observation Conference on the subjects of climate change, GMES and meteorological missions, a conference on Global Challenges in Satellite Communications, and an Astronauts Day with a three-hour programme of presentations which was well-received by a large audience, reinforcing the capacity of human spaceflight to engage the public. The handover of the IAF flags by Liu Wang, a Chinese taikonaut, accompanied by a high level Chinese delegation also proved very popular. A Space Tweetup by DLR and ESA on 14 September led to a huge wave of tweets about Lunar Lander, ATV, space careers and many other topics. A well-structured programme with presentations during the public day was highly successful.