The latest campaign for Rocket-borne EXperiments for University Students, or REXUS, was kicked off on 3 March as students arrived at the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, Sweden. The goal is for Rexus 5 to lift off on 10 March 2009 with Rexus 6 following as soon as possible.

Experiments onboard

Nordic ionospheric sounding rocket seeding experiment (NISSE)
Students from University of Bergen, Norway, the University of Oulu, Finland, and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Financed by ESA.
The NISSE experiment will release 19 kilos of water at an altitude of 95 km. Changes in the distribution of ions in the ionosphere where the experiment will release the water will influence the local environment. These changes will be tracked and analysed by the EISCAT radar outside Kiruna. The goal of the experiment is to understand better how the ionosphere works.

Itikka
Students from Castor Space Club from the Technical University of Tampere, Finland. Financed by ESA.
Itikka will test an inertial measurement unit destined for a future sounding rocket project, Supikoira. The team will analyse the function of the prototype unit in the high acceleration, high angular velocity and high vibration environment to learn what their rocket will experience on its own flight. Itikka’s payload includes a camera to capture pictures of the Earth from high altitude. These will be the first Finnish images taken from space.

Vibration effects on biphasic fluids (VIB-BIP)
Students from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Financed by ESA.
The VIB-BIP experiment will study the vibrations in fluids containing gas bubbles, the so called biphasic fluids, in low gravity. The team hopes the results will point to new applications of biphasic fluids both in space and for more Earth-bound uses.

CharPa
Students from Leibniz-Institute of Atmosheric Physics IAP, Kühlungsborn, Germany, Stockholm University, Sweden and Technische Universität München, Germany. Financed by DLR.
The CharPa experiment will measure meteoric smoke particles (MSPs) in the upper mesosphere. Despite the tiny dimensions (1-5 nm), it has been suggested that MSPs are involved in a variety of atmospheric processes such as the nucleation of mesospheric ice clouds, heterogeneous chemistry, and the formation of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT)-particles in polar stratospheric clouds which are involved in ozone destruction in the polar spring.

The rocket

The REXUS rocket (an Improved Orion) can carry 30 kg of experimental equipment to an altitude of 100 kilometers, an altitude commonly defined as the edge of space. The flight lasts seven minutes. The rocket is six meters long and weighs 500 kg. It can reach a speed of more than 1 200 m/s and can reach its maximum altitude in less than three minutes. The engine will burn out at an altitude of 20 km and the rocket will continue to rise coasting. Each flight carries a payload consisting solely of students experiments. Half of the overall payload is available to German students through a DLR announcement of opportunity, while the other half is open to students from all other ESA Member States and Co-operating States by the Swedish National Space Board (SNBS) through collaboration with ESA's Education Office.

Esrange Space Center

Esrange is the Swedish Space Corporation's space center located in northern Sweden, 45 km from the town of Kiruna. Surrounded by a sparsely populated area, Esrange is ideal for launching sounding rockets. More than 500 sounding rockets have been launched from the Esrange Space Center, making it one of the world's leading launch facilities.

For further information contact

Mr. Olle Persson, Rexus project manager at Esrange, SSC
Phone: +46 980 720 05
E-mail: olle.persson@esrange.ssc.se
or
Mrs. Johanna Bergstrom-Roos, information manager at Esrange, SSC
Phone: +46 8980 720 24
E-mail: johanna.bergstrom-roos@esrange.ssc.se