Cooperating with space engineers
Newsletter 01/08/2018
The flight training with 31 Northern Bald Ibises in Überlingen / Hödingen is progressing well. The birds now fly very reliably with the paraplanes.
The day before yesterday we flew for the first time with two paraplanes, starting at the training camp and heading for the airfield Radolfzell-Stahringen. There we met with the ornithologist Prof. Peter Berthold and a film crew. Overall, the flight was 55 km long and the birds followed the aircrafts easily.
Walter Nauman followed the flight from the training camp in Überlingen/Hödingen. He is the CEO of ICARUS Observation System GmbH (I-GOS). Based in Immenstaad at Lake Constance, this company is developing a completely new, high-performance animal tracking system. The German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Russian Space Center, the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell participate in the project, too.
We’ve been in contact with I-GOS for some time, now we’re cooperating in a more specific way. With our birds, we’re testing the prototypes of these innovative transmitters, thus providing the engineers with important experience for further development. The testing of transmitters and dummies on our birds during the flights provides data on the measuring accuracy, the capacity of the solar panels as well as on the aerodynamic properties of the transmitters on the bird’s body.
During the human-led migration, the birds will also temporarily carry I-GOS transmitters on their backs. These devices provide not only information about the position of the individual bird but also about their speed, the magnetic orientation, air pressure and temperature. The data is transmitted by an antenna module on the International Space Station. This module is already on site, but not yet in operation. Meanwhile, the data are read out with a terrestrial receiver module.
Speaking of the human-led migration, we’ll start our jouney here in Überlingen / Hödingen on the 15th of August, probably a few days later due to weather conditions. We essentially will follow the route of the previous year, first to the Bregenzerwald, across the Arlberg and the Reschen Pass to South Tyrol.
Picture: Walter Naumann and Corinna Esterer discuss the attachment of an ICARUS prototype on a Northern Bald Ibis.
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