PoleCATS

Students from the UK are designing and building a space weather experiment to fly on a REXUS sounding rocket in March 2013.

A team from the UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space have put together a design for a miniaturised space plasma instrument which will fly next year on a launch from Kiruna in northern Sweden as part of the european Rocket EXperiments for University Students programme.

REXUS experiments are launched on an unguided, spin-stabilised rocket powered by an Improved Orion Motor with 290 kg of solid propellant. It is capable of taking 40 kg of student experiment modules to an altitude of approximately 100 km. The vehicle has a length of approx. 5.6 m and a body diameter of 35.6 cm.

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 a collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

EuroLaunch, a cooperation between the Esrange Space Center of 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 SSC, Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.