German EP community – an overview on its activities inside the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics (DGLR) and presentation of the latest position paper

In Germany a lot of groups at big and middle standing companies, universities and institutes work direct in the field of electric propulsion respective in for this modern space technology interesting fields like plasma physics, modelling, photovoltaics, material research and others. In order to build a platform for discussions and co-operations for all this colleagues in November 2010 the working group “E” in the frame of the new department R 1.3 “propulsion” of DGLR was founded. First of all a so called matrix of competence was generated and the working fields of the groups were summarized in the result of the first work shop within a position paper. The work of the community should help to define a development direction and a founding concept for public agencies and private companies. The talk delivers an overview on application companies, thruster systems respective developers and support platform institutions within Germany. The competence matrix as well as the last position paper is outlined