Press Release from Swedish Space Corporation

Press release from Swedish Space Corporation

Esrange Space Center March 26, 2010

ESA Director General at Esrange Space Center to celebrate successful launch of MAXUS 8

Europe’s largest sounding rocket for experiments in microgravity, MAXUS 8, was successfully launched today at 14.43 LT from Swedish Space Corporation’s (SSC) launch facility Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.

The rocket carried four scientific experiments and a technology demonstrator, all together 800 kg, to an altitude of 700 km which enabled 12 minutes of stable microgravity, 10-5 g. The payload landed safely with a parachute within the impact area and has been recovered by helicopter. The rocket engineers are presently disassembling the payload for further analysis. Press images

A delegation from ESA headquarter is visiting Esrange Space Center to follow the launch and take part of the first results of the flight.

“I am very happy to be back at Esrange to take part of a sounding rocket campaign again” says Mr Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General at ESA. “The campaign team has done a tremendous job and the researchers are pleased with the results so far. I must say I’m impressed of this extraordinary launch site and proud of having such a facility in Europe. It is a unique compliment to the ISS utilisation for the scientific community”.

“With the MAXUS 8 mission, ESA continues its leading role in maintaining autonomous European microgravity platforms able to offer the user community with frequent flight opportunities to nurture the community which will also be using the ISS until 2020 and beyond” says Mrs Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of Human Spaceflight at ESA.

“Sounding rockets from Esrange Space Center are a key platform for research providing an important, cost effective and independent means for Europe to carry out specific experiments with benefit from the bounders conditions of these flights and field with a relatively quick turnaround of results, says Dr. Martin Zell, Head of ISS utilisation department at the Directorate of Human Space Flight at ESA. “They also provide precursor testing of new science protocols and research equipment which later could be used for long-term experiments on the International Space Station”.

Unique X-Ray radiography onboard Three of the four experiments are in the field of material science and the fourth is a biology science experiment. SSC has developed one of the experiment modules for material science, XRMON-Diffusion, with the aim to explore the diffusion process between two metal alloys in microgravity. Similar experiments have been performed before on sounding rocket flights and onboard the space shuttle and the FOTON satellite. This time however, for the very first time, the experiment process will be monitored by a unique X-ray radiography during the microgravity phase.

The XRMON Scientific experiment is lead by scientists from BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in Berlin and the DLR Institute of Material Physics in Cologne. The project is a part of the ESA microgravity application programme.

“The benefit of using sounding rockets is obvious for us”, says Dr Axel Griesche, the lead scientist of the XRMON experiment at the BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing “The microgravity quality is excellent, and in addition it is nice to be able to run X-Ray radiography without jeopardising safety onboard as the flight is unmanned”.

The MAXUS sounding rocket programme is a joint venture between SSC and EADS Astrium, funded by ESA through the European Programme for Life and Physical Science in Space (ELIPS). Several other space companies are involved such as DLR, Kayser- Threde, RUAG Space. The next flight, MAXUS 9, is not scheduled yet but the experimental programme is under elaboration.

Press images for download

About XRMON-Diffusion

ESA’s information on MAXUS 8 (good explanations of the experiments)

About the MAXUS programme

For further information contact Johanna Bergstrom-Roos Information manager at Esrange Space Center Swedish Space Corporation Phone: +46 980 720 24 or +46 705 446 021 E-mail: [email protected] or Gunnar Florin Project manager for MAXUS 8 Swedish Space Corporation Phone: +46 707 229 212 E-mail: [email protected] or Dr Axel Griesche Head of the XRMON-Diffusion team BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in Berlin Tel: +49 308 810 410 02 Switchboard at Esrange: +46 980 72000 (until Sunday March 28) E-mail: [email protected]