Mission of the Venture Lab Aerospace

The goal of the Aerospace Venture Lab is to promote and increase innovative and high-quality start-up activities as part of the TU Munich's excellence strategy in the fields of aerospace and geodesy as well as high-speed transportation systems within the TUM technology ecosystem.

 

Innovation Areas of the Venture Lab Aerospace

Aeronautics, space and geodesy are future-oriented innovation fields of cross-sectional technologies. While an interdisciplinary approach of 'classical' engineering fields (material sciences, fluid dynamics, electronics, etc.) has always been required, significant future progress is based on the integration of new disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, miniaturization and battery technology.
Due to globally growing mobility, progressive (commercial) development of the earth orbit and increased demand for (real-time) earth observation data, the renowned research in the disciplines of aeronautics, space and geodesy has a high future value at TUM and represents the basis for the settlement and strengthening of a key industry for Germany, Bavaria and Munich. Here, there is access to an extensive network of world-class companies and start-ups, which is supported by an extraordinarily strong research, innovation and university environment. At the same time, there is a need to catch up with the global dominant markets and companies in the USA and industries in many areas.
The current developments within the thematic areas offer an ideal breeding ground for start-ups, as, for example, digital business models and miniaturization are now making start-ups increasingly possible even in the aerospace sector, which is typically difficult to invest in. 
In aerospace, the launch costs for satellites have fallen by an order of magnitude, with simultaneous miniaturization of the satellites. As a result, start-ups are now able to manufacture and operate their own satellites at a reasonable cost. 
In geodesy and earth observation, there is an explosion of available data, both in temporal, geometric, and spectral dimensions. In this field, there are countless potential applications of global scope that can only be realized with the help of modern, digital and AI-based solutions.
Likewise, in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, costs have dropped massively and new fields of application have been opened up, such as 'last-mile' transportation, but also short-range passenger transport (Lilium).