MASER 10 MICROGRAVITY ROCKET MISSION AND RECENT MICROGRAVITY ACTIVITIES OF SWEDISH SPACE CORPORATION

摘要

The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) conducts the MASER microgravity rocket program since 1987, with the purpose of providing flight opportunities to the scientific community for performance of experiment under microgravity conditions. The MASER 10 microgravity rocket was launched successfully from Esrange on 2 May 2005. The achieved microgravity time was 6 minutes 1 second. The payload accommodated four ESA financed experiment modules containing five different experiments for scientific research. The MAXUS microgravity rocket program is a joint venture between SSC and EADS Space Transportation. The MAXUS rocket system uses a single-stage solid propellant rocket (Castor 4B). The rocket is guided and utilises a thrust vector control system. The MAXUS 6 rocket was launched successfully on 22 November 2004 from Esrange and provided more than 12 minutes of mierogravity. These programs and activities including details about the payloads are presented in this paper.