On December 6 at 08:07 UTC, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) launched an Improved Malemute/Improved Malemute — yes, you heard me right — sounding rocket carrying the MAPHEUS 10 mission from the European Space and Sounding Rocket Range or Esrange in northern Sweden. Both stages were identical Improved Malemute motors stacked on top of each other. The total flight time was fifteen minutes, and the rocket reached an altitude of 259 kilometers. The payload section landed under a parachute and was recovered.

Onboard were seven experiments ranging from materials research to radiation measurement. We don’t have time to talk about all of them so here are a few of my favorites.

The first of these experiments is ARTEC, which is short for AeRogel TEChnologies. It used five furnaces to melt and then solidify different alloys in microgravity conditions. This avoids some problems which happen when casting metal in gravity and exposes problems that gravity compensates for. According to Dr. Sonja Steinbach at the DLR Institute for Material Physics in Space: In this way, we can develop more accurate models and better describe the relationships between process parameters, structure, and properties.

ARTEC previously flew on MAPHEUS 8.

MARS, or Metal-Based Additive Manufacturing for Space and Weightlessness Applications, manufactured a small piece of equipment using a metal 3D printer in flight. 3D-printed metal structures have very high strength and corrosion resistance. Building structures in space has applications from making larger space stations in Earth orbit to bases on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

The last experiment is the one that most interested me when I was putting together this episode. In it, researchers monitored how Trichoplax adhaerens, often called “plate animals” for their flat appearance, reacted to the microgravity environment. This simple multicellular organism (which lacks both tissues and organs) has dedicated cells for sensing gravity. According to the researchers, the point of the experiment was to determine how this feature appeared in Trichoplax adhaerens and then developed in humans, as gravity has shaped the evolution of all life over billions of years. The experiment was filmed in flight, and it will be compared to the movements of ground-based control samples.

MAPHEUS 10 also carried two radiation detectors which will be used on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission to measure radiation on the way to the Moon. The output of both devices will be compared as part of qualifying them for the mission.

More Information

DLR press release (German)

Launch video