Aerospace
A German X-ray observatory in Space called ROSAT, last active in 1999, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on 23 October 2011. It had been launched in 1990.
The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided the framing cameras for the Dawn spacecraft, which arrived at asteroid 4 Vesta in mid 2011. The DLR, which is Germany's space agency took on Hansjörg Dittus as an executive Board member for space research and development in June.
Another space project Germany was involved with was the Mars Science Laboratory Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), which was funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and the DLR. RAD was developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the extraterrestrial physics group at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany. RAD was the first of ten MSL instruments to be turned on, on the route to Mars. It will characterize the broad spectrum of radiation environment found inside the spacecraft.
Read more about this topic: 2011 In Germany