VDE-Award 2019 for Andreas Benedikter
On 21.11.2019 Andreas Benedikter was awarded the VDE Award 2019 for his master thesis. With the VDE Award, VDE Bavaria honors outstanding technical and scientific achievements once a year.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus is particularly interesting from an astrobiological point of view, as a subglacial ocean is suspected to exist beneath its kilometer-thick ice layer, which could harbor life. As part of the Enceladus Explorer Initiative (EnEx), the German Aerospace Center’s space management team is proposing a melting probe that can navigate autonomously in the ice to collect samples and explore this unique moon. A key element and prerequisite of such a mission is radar-based imaging, mapping and characterization of the surface and internal structure of the ice crust. The task is being investigated as part of a research project at LHFT in cooperation with DLR-HR. As part of his master’s thesis, Mr. Benedikter was engaged in analyzing the capabilities and specifics of orbital radar imaging using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for Enceladus and investigating the special imaging characteristics for “subsurface SAR imaging” of ice.