Successful launch of MAPHEUS 12

MAPHEUS-12 beim Start

"I give you a GO, a NO-GO, and I read you loud and clear." The countdown for the MAPHEUS 12 sounding rocket at Esrange in northern Sweden begins like this. All stations must check in and ensure that clear communication is possible. Then the process can begin. For MAPHEUS 12, this was planned to last five hours, during which the last modules are installed in the payload and the engines are ‘primed’, among other things.

In the end, the five-hour countdown became six. Further commotion was caused by a defective temperature sensor that was detected when one of the experiments on board was switched on for the first time. read more

MAPHEUS 12 sounding rocket – much to do before the countdown in northern Sweden

MAPHEUS 12 sounding rocket – preparing experiments for six minutes of microgravity

We're currently preparing the MAPHEUS 12 sounding rocket for its flight into microgravity. We have been at Esrange, a sounding rocket range operated by the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) – approximately 45 minutes from Kiruna in northern Sweden – since last week. We are a team of 30 from the DLR Institute of Materials Physics in Space, together with the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine and DLR’s Mobile Rocket Base (MORABA) and we’re working around the clock, eagerly awaiting the launch. read more