ATEK / MAPHEUS 8
ATEK / MAPHEUS 8
ATEK is a German sounding rocket mission financed by the DLR research and development program “Space Research and Technology”. The aim of the mission is to gather data from health monitoring systems on sounding rocket structures and to offer 6 minutes of microgravity for experiments of the MAPHEUS program in the field of biology, physics and material science.
Image: SSC
General Information
- Launch site
- Esrange Space Center, Kiruna
- Launched
- June 13, 2019 at 02:21 UTC
- Rocket type
- VSB-30
- Payload
- Mixed Experimental
- Image
- SSC
Primary payload
- Aerothermal and Health Monitoring Experiments
- Flush Air Data Sensing (FADS) and Health Monitoring of Motor Adapter
- A Flush Air Data Sensing (FADS) system consisting of five high resolution pressure transducers allows determining flight angles along the flight trajectory including the wind impact. A recently in-house developed heat flux sensor measures the total heat flux evolution at selected positions on the motor adapter. This data in combination with structure temperatures measured with several thermocouples are used for the validation aerothermal design tools. The data acquisition is performed using a modular and crash resistant system.
- Motor Case and Tailcan Health Monitoring Instrument-ation Package
- The tailcan health monitoring package detects structural properties of the motor case, nozzle, fins and the tailcan with different type of instrumentation. The motor case temperature is measured with Fiber Bragg Gitters. One fin is instrumented with strain gauges, thermocouples and pressure sensors. Fin surface temperature distribution is monitored using a compact infrared camera installed in the tailcan. In addition an infrared camera is placed inside the tailcan to monitor the external wall temperature of the nozzle throat region. Multi spectral radiometers are measuring the plume radiation, which is used to determine the plume temperature.
- Hybrid Module
- Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) has been used to manufacture a sounding rocket primary structure comprised of carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic (CF-PEEK). This single-step (in-situ) manufacturing method allows eliminating expensive and time-consuming vacuum-bagging processes. Operational loads are transferred to the structure via HI-LOK screw rivets. This module, which passed all qualification tests, successfully, represents the first generation of in-situ AFP-produced primary structures for real flight applications. The flight component is equipped with thermocouples and Fiber Bragg Gitter (FBG) and strain gauges.
Secondary payload
- ARTEC
- (AeRogel TEchnology for Cast alloys) enables directional solidification experiments under high cooling rates with aluminum alloys. Besides a fast freezing of the sample conserving the solidified microstructure a better theoretical understanding of the influence of a sudden change of solidification velocity on microstructure formation is obtained.
- Michael Balter, MP-EXP, Dr. Dirk Bräuer, MP-EXP, Prof. Florian Kargl, MP-EXP, Dr. Sonja Steinbach, MP-EXP, Germany
- RAMSES II
- (Random Motion of Microswimmers – Experiment in Space) is designed to investigate the collective motion of artificial microswimmers in three dimensions. The microswimmers used for RAMSES are realized by coating one hemisphere of glass particles with a thin layer of carbon. This carboncoated surface heats up with illumination, which is in suspension used to generate thrust on these particles. The specific combination of particle material and suspension fluid required for generating active swimming prevents density-matching of the particles, and present studies on active swimming are restricted to two-dimensional systems.
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Voigtmann (DLR-MP), Prof. Dr. Clemens Bechinger (U Konstanz), Dr. Celia Lozano (U Konstanz), Dr. Philip Born (DLR-MP), Dr. David Heuskin (DLR-MP), Dr. Dirk Bräuer (DLR-MP), Raphael Keßler (DLR-MP), Christoph Dreißigacker (DLR-MP) Germany
- GraScha 2.0
- Acoustic wave propagation in a granular medium is examined at low confinement pressure. In microgravity, the absence of a hydrostatic gradient enables us to impose a much lower and more homogeneous confinement pressure on a packing of glass beads than is possible on ground. With a variety of excitation signals we probe the transition from linear to nonlinear wave transmission by measuring sound speed, attenuation, dispersion and multiple scattering at different amplitudes and frequencies.
- Alberto Chiengue Tchapnda, MP-EXP, Christoph Dreißigacker, MP-EXP, Prof. Dr. Matthias Sperl, MP-EXP, Karsten Tell, MP-EXP, Dr. Peidong Yu, MP-EXP / Uni Köln Germany
- MEGrama3a
- (Magnetically Excited Granular Materials) acts as a technology trial for planned MEGraMa3 long-term μg experiments on diverse orbital platforms. As a further development of the tried-and-tested MAPHEUS modules MEGraMa1 / 2, the resulting accelerations under microgravity are to be determined here for novel ferromagnetic particles which are located in clocked 2-dimensional magnetic fields.
- Jörg Drescher, MP-EXP, Peidong Yu, MP-EXP / Uni Köln Germany
- OHSCIS
- (Organic and Hybrid Solar Cells In Space) is an experiment designed for electrical characterization of novel material thin-film solar cells in space. Organic and hybrid (composite of organic/inorganic materials) thin-film solar cells exhibit an outrageous power-to-mass ratio and are therefore an interesting technology for space applications.
- Prof. Dr. Peter Müller-Buschbaum1, Dr. Michael Böhmer1, Lennart Reb1, Sebastian Grott1, Benjamin Predeschly1, Goran Ivandekic1, Christian Weindl1 1TU München, DLR-MP Germany
- CellFix II
- The CellFix II experiment module is designed to enable the liquid fixation of biological samples. On ATEK, it will be used to investigate the proteomic profile of neurons and astrocytes under hyper-g (during launch) and microgravity conditions.
- Dr. Christian Liemersdorf, DLR ME-BIO, Dr. Jens Hauslage, DLR ME-BIO Germany
- MemEx III
- (Membrane Experiment) focus the influenced ability of double lipid layers (artificial cell membrane) to integrate pharmaceutic substances under microgravity.
- Dr. Jens Hauslage, DLR ME-BIO, PD Dr. Florian P.M. Kohn, Uni Hohenheim, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hanke Uni Hohenheim, PD Dr. Ruth Hemmersbach DLR ME-BIO Germany
Contact Persons
Prof. Dr. Ali Gülhan, DLR
Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer, DLR
Alexander Kallenbach, DLR
Mikael Jonasson, SSC Esrange Space Center
ATEK is a German sounding rocket mission financed by the DLR research and development program “Space Research and Technology”. The aim of the mission is to gather data from health monitoring systems on sounding rocket structures and to offer 6 minutes of microgravity for experiments of the MAPHEUS program in the field of biology, physics and material science.
Image: SSC
