Dornier was well known between the two world wars as a manufacturer of large, all-metal flying boats and of land based airliners.

The record-breaking 1924 Wal (English: Whale) was used on many long distance flights and the Do X set records for its immense size and weight.

Dornier's successful landplane airliners, including the Komet (Comet) and Merkur (Mercury), were used by Lufthansa and other European carriers during the 1920s and early 30s.

Foreign factories licence-building Dornier products included CMASA and Piaggio in Italy, CASA in Spain, Kawasaki in Japan, and Aviolanda in the Netherlands.

The success of the Wal family encouraged the development of derivatives, and of more advanced successors, such as the Do 18, and Do 24 which saw service in several armed forces, including German, into World War II.

Dornier then developed it further as a military aircraft, with a prototype bomber flying in 1935, and in 1937 it was used in by the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) acquired a production licence for the Dornier 228 and manufactured the aircraft for the Asian market.

As part of this transaction, Lindauer Dornier GmbH was spun off, creating a separate, family-owned firm, concentrating on textile machinery design and manufacturing.

The ESA funded the unit, which actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05 arcseconds.