Congratulations to our student team! We are delighted to announce that we have won the Student Design Competition of the European Space Agency (ESA) at the International Microwave Symposium 2025 in San Francisco. As a team, we entered our master’s students, Leon Hülsmann (Integrated Systems) and Daria Tsukanova (HFS), supported by doctoral candidates Tobias Welling and Stephan Hauptmeier (both Integrated Systems).

As part of the competition, they developed an innovative structure that specifically increases the radar cross section of rockets in space using a retrodirective structure. This novel solution enables significantly improved tracking of spacecraft and thus makes a major contribution to the safety and efficiency of future space missions, successfully standing out against international competition.

We would like to thank the organizers for this unique opportunity and look forward to advancing our research even further. Stay tuned for more updates on our project, which aims to send a rocket equipped with this structure into space next year!