Beginnings

Our story began on Earth,
but our mission has always been in space

Named for the sky,
Built for space

AZUR SPACE was founded in 1964 in southern central Germany, in Heilbronn. Our first products flew successfully on Germany’s very first satellite Azur (GRS-A) in 1969. The name “Azur” (pronounced: “Ahzoor”) in the German language means ‘sky blue’.

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A Legacy of Partnership and Innovation

Since 1964, we have been part of AEG, Telefunken, Daimler Chrysler Aerospace, ASE, RWE, Generali and now 5N Plus. In 2007, we rebranded ourselves to our current name, AZUR SPACE, after our 1969 Azur satellite heritage… 

In 2022, we became part of 5N Plus Inc. of Montreal, Canada.

More on AZUR SPACE's storied heritage

AZUR SPACE’s roots are closely linked to more than 100 years of industrial history of AEG-Telefunken. Founded in 1964 as a part of Telefunken, the company developed and manufactured solar cells for the first German satellite, AZUR, which launched in 1969.

Since that time, more than 16 million space qualified solar cells and Coverglass Interconnected Cell (CIC) assemblies, providing more than 11 MW of power to over 2 500 space projects have been delivered by AZUR SPACE. The cells power satellites in all Earth orbits (LEO, MEO, GEO), as well as spacecraft under environmental conditions from Mercury (HIHT) to Jupiter (LILT), without a failure or anomaly.

Intelsat, Globalstar, Hotbird, ATV, Galileo Sat, Meteosat, Glonass, GMES and OneWeb are just some of the commercial telecommunication and Earth exploration satellite programs powered by our solar cells.

In cooperation with the European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center DLR and NASA, AZUR SPACE has developed and provided solar cells for scientific missions in deep space and to other planets, such as Hubble Space Telescope, Rosetta, Venus Express, Mars Express, Herschel-Planck, JUICE, Europa Clipper and many others.

The technologies developed by AZUR SPACE for space applications are now also used for terrestrial photovoltaics systems as well as opto- and power-electronic devices.

Technical Milestones

  • 1964: Silicon space solar cell reaches 8% efficiency at AM0
  • 1974: First multi-crystalline Si solar cell with 10% efficiency at AM 1.5
  • 1986: High efficiency Si solar cell reaches 18% efficiency at AM0
  • 1990: Ultrathin (5 µm) GaAs solar cell reaches 20% efficiency at AM0
  • 2008: Triple-junction GaAs solar cell with 30% efficiency at AM0
  • 2009: World record lattice-mismatched CPV GaAs triple-junction solar cell with 41.1% efficiency at AM1.5d (in cooperation with Fraunhofer ISE)
  • 2012: Triple-junction solar cell with 35% efficiency at AM1.5 for terrestrial one sun applications in large-scale production
  • 2017: First quadruple-junction space solar cell 4G32C with 32% beginning-of-life efficiency and 28.7% end-of-life efficiency at AM0
  • 2019: Triple-junction space solar cells adapted for low-intensity low-temperature (LILT) conditions for missions to Jupiter
  • 2022: First quintuple-junction solar cells 5C46 for terrestrial CPV applications