TEXUS-37/38 double campaign - Part one completed succesfullyKiruna, Sweden: Ten years have passed since the last TEXUS (technological experiments under the influence of microgravity) double campaign, TEXUS-25/26, in 1990. The first flight within the TEXUS-37/38 campaign was completed yesterday. A double campaign helps to improve the already favourable conditions at which scientists can expose their experiments to microgravity (µ-g) for a period of up to six minutes. Yesterday’s flight, TEXUS-37, once again demonstrated the outstanding reliability of this sounding rocket program which was started by Kayser-Threde and DaimlerChrysler 24 years ago. A TEXUS rocket is composed of modular, re-usable system elements with a diameter of 438 mm in accordance to the respective payload requirements. The service system was developed by Kayser-Threde and can be used again after servicing. Munich’s space company Kayser-Threde was awarded a sub-contract by DaimlerChrysler and was responsible for the payload service systems (TM and data acquisition, TC, TV, µ-g measurement, payload rate control, GPS) and recovery. Both flights were contracted to DaimlerChrysler by DLR and ESA. On March 27th, 2000 at 13:17 local time, TEXUS-37 was launched from the Swedish launch site Esrange. The ballistic flight reached an apogee of approx. 243 km and exposed the payload to microgravity (<1 x 10-4 g) over a period of five minutes and 49 seconds. Lift-off mass was 369,2 kg excluding the 2-stage rocket engine Skylark 7. TEXUS-37 completed its automated landing via parachute about 75 km from the launch site. Experiments aboard TEXUS-37 covered different areas of basic research: • Autonomously Directional Solidification of Peritectic SnSb Alloys (ACCESS, Aachen) and
• Proteins of the Cytoskeleton under Microgravity (Univ. of Bonn) • Critical Velocities in Open Capillary Flows (ZARM, Univ. of Bremen)
• Regulation of Primary Metabolism Under Microgravity (Univ. of Tübingen) • In-vivo Observation of the Effects of Microgravity on the Statolith Movements in Negative Gravitopic Protonema of Chara Specimen (Univ. of Bonn).
The scientists from universities and research institutions can begin with the evalutation of the experiments within the next days. TEXUS-38 is scheduled for launch on April 1st, 2000. We will keep you posted.
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