• Funding for the German ESA Business Incubation Centers (BIC) has been secured for a further four years.
• Funding for the incubation program will be increased by almost 70 percent to a total of 11.6 million euros.
• By 2025, the program will have grown to 13 locations in seven federal states.

BERLIN, Germany (DLR PR) — The financial future of the German ESA Business Incubation Centers (BIC) is secured in the coming years: As part of the ESA Investor Forum, which took place from May 16 to 17, 2022 in Berlin, Luca del Monte, Head of Commercialization at the European Space Agency (ESA) and Dr. Walther Pelzer, Member of the DLR Executive Board and Head of the German Space Agency at DLR, the extension of the funding for a further four years was announced. The funding will also be increased by around 70 percent. The aim of the incubation centers is to support the commercial use of space technologies and satellite-based services in non-space markets (spin-off) and the use of new technologies in space (spin-in).

• On October 14, 2020, the winners of the INNOspace Masters competition were honored in an online conference.
• More than 300 companies, start-ups, universities and research institutions in 15 European countries answered the call.
• The new 2020/21 competition will start under the motto “Innovations for sustainable infrastructures – in space and on earth”.

COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — Under the motto “New Ideas between Space and Earth”, the space management of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) searched the fifth INNOspace Masters competition for new ideas and concepts that address current challenges in space travel and other industries and offer innovative solutions. Five competition categories – called “Challenges” – from different development and innovation phases in the value chain were available for the participants to choose from. 

The “DLR Space Management Challenge” focused on the research and development phase, while the industrial partners Airbus and OHB were looking for proposals for solutions that were already ready for the market. DB Netz AG, since this year an additional industrial partner of the competition, focused on innovations from the space industry for the monitoring, inspection and maintenance of the rail infrastructure. The “ESA BIC Start-up Challenge”, which was aimed at the start-up