共同使命：保时捷工程公司与欧洲航天局展开对话

毛雷尔先生，您是一位满怀热情的科学家，曾于 2021 至 2022 年执行<宇宙之吻=任务期间，在国际空间站上进行了为期半年的科研工作——其中包括舱外活动。如今您正主导科隆LUNA 模拟设施的建设，这是欧洲航天局与德国航空航天中心为未来月球任务建造的模拟设施。您对当前探月进程的节奏是否满意？

毛雷尔：我对我们的 LUNA 月球训练基地极为满意——我甚至可以说，我们凭借此设施拥有全球最先进的配置。就连美国国家航空航天局不久前也曾专程来到科隆我们这里进行测量。他们在此测试了一款计划在月球上使用的新型相机——而我则有幸在模拟的极端环境下对这款相机进行了测试。这确实让我们感到非常自豪。更令人振奋的是，我们即将在此测试新型月球站。您可以把它想象成一个高科技集装箱，我们将在模拟真实环境的条件下连续生活数周。届时，一条连廊将把这个集装箱与 LUNA 训练基地连接起来。这也意味着在模拟任务期间，我们将始终处于这些相连的空间内——自然也看不到太阳。月球表面遍布具有强磨蚀性的月尘。由于没有水，也因为没有大气而没有风，月岩几乎保持静止状态。因此，月尘颗粒棱角分明并且具有粘性，质感近似面粉。此外，月坑的深度难以预估，极端低温可达零下150 摄氏度。在永远不见阳光的月球阴影区——那些深邃的月坑内部，温度甚至可能低至零下 250 摄氏度。低角度的太阳会投下危险的阴影，同样构成挑战。这些正是月球极区等待我们的严酷环境——而那里恰恰是我们的目标所在。

这些描述已十分具体——还有哪些重大挑战亟待攻克？

毛雷尔：当前我们缺少的是我们自己的火箭及其返回舱。核心挑战在于火箭和返回舱都必须通过载人认证。而特殊之处在于，返回舱必须实现安全返回——再入大气层时绝不能烧毁。这是由极高的再入速度与由此产生的剧烈摩擦热造成的。过去我们在此领域高度依赖国际工程技术与合作伙伴。但现在正是欧洲构建自主韧性的关键时刻——这固然适用于多领域，但航天无疑是核心环节。

罗根多夫先生，您出身于交通系统领域——但您的工作早已拓展至从道路交通到浩瀚太空的全域范畴。作为工程服务商，如何驾驭如此广阔的技术疆界——尤其在充满未知数的前瞻性项目中？

罗根多夫：这种广阔的领域范围，正是驱动我们全体工程师前进的动力。例如在我们的跨学科团队中，大量开发人员具备航空航天工程背景。这些专业能力助力我们应对各行业多样化的技术挑战。目前我们正在开发用于卫星的完整能源系统。其中，近地轨道的要求与汽车领域的要求高度契合，例如在温度曲线特征或火箭发射时的振动方面。

毛雷尔先生，欧洲航天局作为一个航天机构，其组织结构与商业公司截然不同。要实现人类在月球生活工作的愿景，哪些思维方式和工作范式至关重要？

毛雷尔：欧洲航天局使用税款运作，这意味着我们必须极其审慎地使用这些资源。但同时也意味着我们会遇到大量的官僚主义并且必须处理延误，这种程度的管理压力是工业界私营企业所未曾面对的。我们内部常言：先进行一项研究——接着再开始第二项，乃ó第三项。此举旨在满足法律规范并确保绝对合规。欧洲航天局的核心职能在于制定方向1规划项目并将其外包给工业界。如果工业界本身能够定义目标，并在作为可靠锚定客户的欧洲航天局的支持下，用自己的风险和资本去推进，这无疑将带来更高的速度和灵活性2而在这一点上，我们也需要更多参与者加入。

Mr. Roggendorf, how do you see the future in this regard?

CR: We have always had the drive to venture beyond the automotive industry and into other industries. It is exciting for us to combine knowledge from different industries and to make a contribution with our engineering services. Process-efficient—from proof of concept and testing of physical limits at an early stage, through to the fastest possible approach to a solution that is ready for series production.

Of course, research and progress cannot be achieved without setbacks. As a development service provider, how do you deal with failure? How do you succeed in boldly developing new technologies and at the same time validating processes for customers?

CR: This depends entirely on the stage of development and customer expectations. There’s a Ferry Porsche quote that fits perfectly here: “We are not afraid of setbacks. On the contrary, we expect them. If you don’t fail from time to time, then you didn’t really challenge yourself.” This is the motto that we apply to our work every day. As an engineer, I have to and want to test the limits of what is technically feasible, especially in pre-development phases. If everything always goes smoothly, then I have learned too little. We have to promote an error culture that allows mistakes to be made in these phases. Of course, this is different in the series phase. At that point, we have to have an absolutely functionally reliable, error-free, and high-quality product.

Mr. Maurer, in manned space flight in particular, the reliability of a development is a matter of life and death. How do you strike a balance between „better safe than sorry” and the courage to take risks?

MM: Up to now, aerospace agencies have always carried out an extremely large number of tests in order to rule out as many errors as possible before launching a rocket—this is, of course, very time consuming. And you can learn a lot from it, in particular when something goes wrong. In the meantime, a new error culture has taken root in aerospace due to the influence of industry: “Fail early, fail often.” This happens to a certain extent in large-scale rocket projects—a rocket explodes and employees cheer because they weren’t expecting a total success in the first place. It’s hard for me to imagine that happening at ESA, but it’s a direction we need to take. Of course, only as long as there are no people sitting in these rockets and no one is harmed on the ground. As soon as we start talking about manned space flight, we must have an absolute zero-error policy—and a reliable fallback system. If a rocket has a problem, the astronauts in the capsule are ejected and come back down to earth with the parachute. And this fallback system has actually already been needed, and resulted in the astronauts landing safely.

To what extent can aerospace benefit from industrial and commercial achievements in terms of cost-effective manufacturing and profitable development timeframes? And what can space research specifically do for companies?

MM: I’m very keen on the idea of “spin-in”. That is to say, to ensure that we incorporate industrial capabilities and innovations into aerospace projects. The automotive industry is so innovative and so fast in development that an incredible amount of technology is either already in use, almost ready for series production, or at least in the drawer. I dream of opening this drawer and tipping its contents into the aerospace sector. The prerequisite for this is establishing a dialog between the two worlds. After all, something has shifted in terms of innovation drivers. In the past, the entire IT system had to be developed for the Apollo mission. That was a driver of innovation, if you look at the patents that emerged from that. However, in today’s aerospace, we have highly established processes and make use of a lot of heritage. Using new technologies means overcoming new hurdles—and the technologies must be certified. As a result, we use very old systems and even older computers on the ISS. I hope that we will increasingly introduce new technology—and dialog, as we are engaging in here today, is essential for this.

Dr. Christoph Roggendorf has been Director of the Energy System division at Porsche Engineering since 2023. His main areas of activity include electric mobility, charging infrastructure, and HV systems, such as components for battery storage and power electronics.

Mr. Roggendorf, to what extent can industry and you, as a development service provider, benefit from aerospace programs?

CR: The topic of material research is always very exciting for us, and also one of Mr. Maurer’s pet passions. Historically, many high-end materials from which industry has benefited have come from aerospace applications. And that’s where these two worlds are growing together. New business areas are emerging—we are now also involved in the satellite sector, for example. Traditionally, virtually every satellite has been a one-off. The objective now is to see how such systems can be standardized and constructed in a modular way. This means our experience allows us to provide assistance in the industrialization of products and thereby enable our customers to scale up in the new business areas.

MM: Autonomous systems are also a major issue that exhibits an overlap. On Earth, the focus is on autonomous driving with artificial intelligence. In space, we are now also reaching a level of traffic density in which individual people will soon no longer be able to control all of the satellites. There are more than 12,000 satellites in orbit, some of which are no longer active and therefore no longer controllable. So there are lots of wrong-way drivers up there in space, which we either have to sidestep or capture. These satellites have been controlled by people on Earth, but this will no longer be possible given the sheer number of satellites. This control must be replaced by artificial intelligence - the satellites must use it to operate autonomously. The terrestrial and cosmic challenges and questions are pointing in the same direction. Aside from the fact that we don’t need a reverse gear in space. (laughs)

CR: When we think about autonomously controlled satellites, the question of precision also arises. And we have a lot of experience with that. In the automotive industry, we’re talking about centimeters—for satellites, we are talking about many kilometers. However, the intervention mechanisms are comparable. And we can also make a valuable contribution to fleet management-given increasing numbers—with our methods and tools in the areas of control and automation, and even artificial intelligence.

Staying on this topic: Mr. Roggendorf, how can this knowledge—for example, with regard to development processes, virtual test methods or high integration—be applied to aerospace projects?

CR: I think these are exactly the methods that need to be used in the aerospace sector. Virtual testing methods are a great example. We are working on digital twins of entire systems. Let’s take a vehicle battery as an example. Through a digital twin and live data transmission, we come to know and understand the system in great detail during development. I can get the most out of it and extend the service life of the battery. Virtual methods and processes like these are, of course, even more important in space. After all, I can’t repair things or refuel as easily. Every gram of fuel and everything I have to bring up there costs an immense amount of money.

MM: In fact, we also use VR technology with twin models here at the LUNA training facility, because we cannot reproduce every device as a physical model. Instead, we wear VR glasses in our spacesuit and display different devices, measuring instruments or another space station in order to interact with them.

CR: If you take this idea in regard to the methods a step further, we invest a great deal of effort in achieving end-to-end solutions - that is, from the product definition to automation of requirements and the generation of test cases with the support of AI, to efficient evaluation of live analysis data. In the case of highly individualized products in particular, where these development phases take an extremely long time, we can become significantly faster with an end-to-end toolchain.

Dr. Matthias Maurer
Astronaut at the European Space Agency (ESA)

Another common feature of your two fields of activity is the global orientation. How important is the international network?

MM: Space flights is such a vast undertaking, and no single country in Europe can manage it alone. As already mentioned, we in Europe as a whole are not yet in a position to fly our own astronauts. We could do that in terms of content, but the financing is unresolved. We have incredible strengths thanks to the huge wealth of experience of different European cultures and different fields of engineering expertise. We can generate potential from this—and we can significantly expand this potential by opening the doors and working together with experts who come from outside the aerospace industry. This will enable us to put Europe in the pole position.

CR: For us at Porsche Engineering, internationalization is very important and a key factor for our success. In Europe, we operate a number of different locations: apart from Germany mostly in Czechia and Romania. We also have a large test facility and an engineering hub in Italy. Our asset is the engineers, the brains of the operation. In order to attract the best talent, the most motivated and highly trained engineers, cooperation with universities in various regions of the world is extremely important. We also have development locations in the US and China. Above all, because they have very different requirements for vehicles than in Europe. Thanks to our local presence, we understand much better what the specific market needs. In terms of connectivity alone, we are dealing with completely different ecosystems, entire app worlds on smartphones, particularly in China. Vehicles are simply used differently there. The right ideas won’t occur to you while you’re sitting in an office in Germany. In addition to the purely technical side, intercultural cooperation is extremely instructive and fruitful in regard to other ways of working.

Finally, a personal question for both of you: What drives you?

CR: It was clear to me at an early stage: I will become an engineer because of my passion for technology. I love trying things out, developing things, refining innovations. And that inspires me every day. We have a highly motivated team to tackle and implement truly novel ideas together. I originally come from the energy sector. It was always a matter of first integrating renewable energies into the grids and ultimately enabling today’s electric mobility. My focus is on advancing new technologies for our planet. I also look at my children, for whom I want things to go well later on. That’s why I get up every day and enjoy going to the office.

MM: As an astronaut, of course, you are someone who is led by your dreams. All I need is to gaze into the night sky every evening and to marvel at how much there is still to discover out there. There are so many places where I want to go and where I want to learn something. The fundamental question here is: How did all that out there come about? How did life come to Earth and how did our solar system come about? Are we alone in the universe or are there other intelligent beings out there? And how might they live? These questions have a lot to do with dreams, but also with a sense of adventure and the drive to discover new things. In addition to my enthusiasm for technology as an engineer, from a science standpoint I am fascinated by the fact that I am allowed to do new experiments every day in space and look over the shoulders of the best researchers in the world. That really energizes me. And then there is the dream of flying to the moon itself. We are looking through the glass here at an Apollo situation—I would like to go there. And another motivation is to share knowledge and inspire the next generation.

本文首次发表于《保时捷工程杂志》2025年第1期。

文字：Heike Hientzsch
摄影：Max Brunnert

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