very time our employees look into the night sky they not only admire the stars but also have to think of one special application that makes us very proud: Two of our DFB-852 laser diodes have been floating in space with the ESA GAIA mission for 9 years now.

These laser diodes are built in 14 pin butterfly packages and support the target of the GAIA mission significantly as they measure interferometrically the angle of the two telescopes in order to keep them constantly in the same position. By that exact measurements are made possible so that a 3D map of the milky way can be created.

For the first time the exact location, composition, temperature and movement of the stars of the milky way are captured – this already happened for 2 billion stars! The third and most extensive part of data was recently published.

What a great and exciting mission! We are very happy to be part of it.