Established in 1970, it has been studying the physics of space plasmas and the atmospheres of planets inside and outside the Solar System for more than 50 years.
With about 100 employees from twenty nations, it is located in the Victor Franz Hess Research Center of OeAW in the south of Graz.
IWF is the only institute in Austria that develops and builds space-qualified instruments on a large scale.
IWF's core engineering expertise is in building magnetometers and on-board computers, as well as in laser ranging to satellites and space debris.
The missions cover fleets of satellites in near-Earth space (Cluster, MMS, THEMIS), the observation of the Sun (STEREO, Solar Orbiter) and the exploration of planets such as Mercury (BepiColombo), Jupiter (Juno, JUICE) and extrasolar planets (CHEOPS).