Space Industry and Business News  
Announcement Of Opportunity For Sounding Rocket And Balloon Flights

BEXUS balloon and gondola.
by Staff Writers
Kiruna, Sweden (SPX) Nov 27, 2007
The ESA Education Office has today issued an announcement of opportunity for student experiments to be flown on two sounding rockets and one stratospheric balloon, to be launched from Kiruna in Northern Sweden. Selected student teams will have the chance to design and build an experiment suitable for flight on the BEXUS 7 balloon that will be launched in September 2008, or the REXUS 5 and 6 sounding rockets, to be launched in March 2009.

Each flight will carry a payload consisting solely of student experiments. Half the payload is available to German students through a DLR Announcement of Opportunity and the other half is made available to students from all other ESA Member States and Co-operating States by the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) through a collaboration with ESA.

The deadline for applications is 7 January 2008. In order to apply, student teams should register online and fill in Form A with the details of their proposal. The opportunity is open to students aged between 18 and 28 at the time of the application deadline. Applicants must have the nationality of an ESA Member State or Co-operating State and be enrolled as full-time undergraduate or PhD students in a University in an ESA Member State or Co-operating State. They must also be studying or researching a subject in a relevant field of science or engineering. (There is an exception to this rule for German students, who should apply to the parallel DLR Call.)

The best 10-12 team proposals will be shortlisted and announced on 28 January 2008. Shortlisted teams will be invited to a workshop at ESTEC from 5-6 March 2008 to present their proposals to experts from ESA and Esrange. Before the workshop they will have to submit basic technical information by filling in Form B. The final selection will be done by the team of experts on 7 March 2008, immediately after the workshop.

The selected teams will be invited to a training week at Esrange in Kiruna, Sweden, from 21-25 April 2008. A preliminary design review of each experiment will be carried out during this week by experts from Esrange. In the following weeks, students will work on their design, following the advice that they have received and complete documentation for a critical design review (CDR).

CDR documentation should be sent to Esrange in June, after which it will be reviewed by the experts. Once it is approved (possibly after several iterations), the design will be considered to be finalised. The students will then build their experiments during the summer of 2008 (in the case of BEXUS) and up to the end of 2008 (in the case of REXUS). Completed experiments must be shipped to Esrange before the deadlines yet to be agreed.

All costs related to the rockets, balloons and launches are covered under the bilateral Agency Agreement between SNSB and DLR regarding the REXUS and BEXUS programmes. Esrange experts will provide technical support in the integration and testing phase, as well as providing campaign management and operations.

Students will be responsible for funding the development of the experiments and their shipment to Esrange, in collaboration with their universities or other sponsors.

Related Links
Swedish National Space Board (SNSB)
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Solar Telescope Reaches 120,000 Feet On Jumbo-Jet-Sized Balloon
Boulder CO (SPX) Oct 24, 2007
In a landmark test flight, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and a team of research partners this month successfully launched a solar telescope to an altitude of 120,000 feet, borne by a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The test clears the way for long-duration polar balloon flights beginning in 2009 that will capture unprecedented details of the Sun's surface.







  • Bee Strategy Helps Servers Run More Sweetly
  • Electricity Grid Could Become A Type Of Internet
  • Google revs up profits as advertising revenues soar
  • Internet preparing to go into outer space

  • Thuraya-3 Satellite Launch Delayed Again
  • Russia To Launch Manned Spacecraft From New Site In 2018
  • Site Thefts Place Russian Rocket Launches Under Threat In French Guiana
  • Lockheed Martin-Built Sirius 4 Launched Successfully From Baikonur Cosmodrome

  • Announcement Of Opportunity For Sounding Rocket And Balloon Flights
  • China to order up to 150 Airbus jets during Sarkozy visit: report
  • Time Magazine Recognizes The X-48B
  • Virgin to offer carbon offsets alongside drinks and perfume

  • Northrop Grumman Qualifies Extended Data Rate Software For AEHF Military Communications Satellite
  • Lockheed Martin Delivers Key Satellite Hardware For New Military Communications System
  • Boeing Demonstrates FAB-T Multi-terminal Link Capability To USAF
  • Successful Second Launch Of Skynet 5 Satellite

  • ESA And Inmarsat Sign Innovative Alphasat Satellite Contract
  • Dude, Big Screen TVs, Flexible Electronics And Surfboards Made From Same New Material
  • Bargain Basement Satellites
  • China Aims To Double Satellite Life Expectancy By 2010

  • Boeing Names Darryl Davis To Lead Advanced Systems For Integrated Defense Systems
  • Northrop Grumman Names John Landon VP Of Missiles, Technology And Space Programs
  • Dr Mary Cleave Appointed To Board Of Directors Of Sigma Space
  • Northrop Grumman Appoints GPS And Military Space VPs

  • Rosetta: Earth's True Colours
  • Northrop Grumman-Built Hyperion Imager Celebrates Seventh Anniversary On-Orbit
  • TRMM Turns Ten - Studying Precipitation From Space
  • Rosetta: OSIRIS' View Of Earth By Night

  • Spain accuses Germany and Italy of blocking Galileo role : press
  • Northrop Grumman Team USAF Contract For GPS Next Generation Control Segment
  • Raytheon Selected to Design The Next GPS Control Segment For Precision Navigation And Timing
  • German groups ensured role in Galileo sat-nav system: report

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement