Second student rocket launched this week
Launch of Rexus 8 Preparations of the experiment LAPLander The LAPLander team
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REXUS 8 – the second student rocket in a week
Today at 11:15 local time the second student rocket this week, REXUS 8, was successfully launched from SSCs launch facility Esrange Space Center. The rocket carried three student experiments onboard and reached an altitude of 88 km. The payload landed safely north of the launch site and is now recovered and back at Esrange Space Center for further analysis.
The three experiments onboard TUPEX-3 will verify a newly developed communication system and a sun sensor for pico- and nanosatellites.
VECTOR will verify concepts for tracking and orientation.
LAPLander will test a light airbag protected lander, a prototype design for an ejectable payload.
Read more about the experiments onboard REXUS 8.
To run a student campaign like REXUS is extremely valuable and is a win-win situation for all partners involved. The students get a profound experience of a real space project and all that comes with it. They also get the opportunity to prepare for their future careers which are valuable both for themselves and for the companies they are going to work for.
The LAPLander team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm received a good luck message before the flight from the Minister of Science and Education, Mr Tobias Krantz who has followed the project.
"The launch was fine and the lander was ejected successfully. We were not able to track the descent with our GPS but we hope that it will be recovered by the helicopter and that we will find some interesting data stored onboard", says Johan Julé, the LAPLander team leader.
The next student campaign will be BEXUS 10 and 11 in September 2010. The B in BEXUS stands for balloon so this time students will design, build and operate balloon-borne experiments. Calls for proposals for the student programmes are issued every autumn. Read more about the REXUS and BEXUS programme on www.rexusbexus.net
For more information please contact: Mr. Olle Persson SSC Project manager at Esrange Space Center Tel: +46 980 72205 or +46 70 297 22 05 E-mail: olle.persson@esrange.ssc.se or Mrs. Johanna Bergstrom-Roos Information manager at Esrange Space Center, SSC Phone: +46 980 720 24 or +46 70 544 60 21 E-mail: johanna.bergstrom-roos@esrange.ssc.se
The REXUS/BEXUS programme The REXUS/BEXUS programme is realised under a bilateral Agency Agreement between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). The Swedish share of the payload has been made available to students from other European countries through collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). EuroLaunch, which is cooperation between the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and the Mobile Rocket Base (MORABA) of DLR, is responsible for the campaign management and operations of the launch vehicles. Experts from ESA, SSC and DLR provide technical support to the student teams throughout the project.
REXUS and BEXUS are launched from SSCs facility Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.