… to infinitely big
At Air Liquide, we also reach for the stars. Our unique expertise in cryogenics and gas engineering allows us to provide strong added-value to the largest international space projects and to support space exploration. For example, we designed the launchers’ cryogenic tanks of Ariane 1 through to Ariane 5, the MELFI cold production system onboard the International Space Station (ISS), and helium storage solutions and cooling systems for the Herschel and Planck satellites(a). We are also maintaining a presence on the launch bases of Kourou in French Guiana, Cape Canaveral in the United States and Tanegashima in Japan.
We are continuing to develop our expertise and innovate on projects such as the future European launcher Ariane 6, the electric propulsion of satellites, and several other projects relating to space exploration to the Moon and Mars. We are currently working, for example, on the production and storage of oxygen and hydrogen, which are essential to support life and space transportation, as part of the “LUNA” project(b) and the ExoMars mission(c).
+50
This is the number of years of experience for Air Liquide in space exploration.
300
This is the number of Air Liquide employees who work on challenges related to the exploration of space.
Christiane Muller
Vice President of Air Liquide Global Markets & Technologies World Business Unit
Projects implemented to support space exploration allow us to constantly push technological limits. All the expertise gathered and the innovations developed are then reused in cutting-edge fields on Earth. We are therefore investing in technology that will be part of humans’ daily life in the future.
(a) In the framework of the programs run by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Herschel and Planck mission is to better understand the creation and evolutions of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day, notably by detecting the oldest radiation emitted by the Universe.
(b) Air Liquide has joined forces with ESA and the German aerospace center (DLR) under the “LUNA” project which seeks to establish a “Moon village” analog near the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne in Germany.
(c) After Curiosity, Air Liquide is taking part in 2020 in the ExoMars mission, in partnership with ESA and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos. This mission consists in sending a small vehicle (rover) to the red planet to analyze the composition of its subsoil.