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Balloons are launched from Kiruna in Sweden
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Call for proposals for sounding rocket and balloon flights

01/09/2011 683 views 0 likes
ESA / Education

The Swedish National Space Board and ESA announce the new call for proposals for student experiments to be flown on two REXUS sounding rockets and two BEXUS stratospheric balloons.

Selected student teams will have the opportunity to design and build an experiment suitable for a flight on the BEXUS 14 and 15 balloons or the REXUS 13 and 14 sounding rockets.

The BEXUS (Balloon-borne Experiments for University Students) 14 and 15 balloons will be launched in September 2012 and the REXUS (Rocket-borne Experiments for University Students) 13 and 14 sounding rockets will be launched in March 2013. All flights will take place from Esrange Space Center in Northern Sweden.

REXUS BEXUS Logo
REXUS BEXUS Logo

The REXUS/BEXUS programme is realised under a bilateral Agency Agreement between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). The Swedish share of the payload has been made available to students from other European countries through a collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

EuroLaunch, a cooperation between the Esrange Space Center of SSC and the Mobile Rocket Base (MORABA) of DLR, is responsible for the campaign execution and operations of the launch vehicles. Experts from ESA, SSC and DLR provide technical support to the student teams throughout the project.

Applications

The deadline for applications is 23 October 2011.
The flight opportunity is open to students aged between 18 and 28 at the time of the application deadline. Applicants must hold the nationality of an ESA Member State, Canada or a Cooperating State* and must be enrolled as a full-time undergraduate or PhD student in a university located in an ESA Member State or a Cooperating State. Students from European Cooperating States are eligible, subject to confirmation of support for their proposal from their delegation.
Applicants must also be studying or researching a subject in a relevant field of science or engineering.
N.B. German students should apply to the parallel DLR call for proposals.

The best 12-15 team proposals will be shortlisted for consideration by a selection panel. These teams will receive an invitation for the selection workshop at ESTEC on 7 and 8 December 2011.

For more information on the programme and how to apply, please visit www.rexusbexus.net. Here you will also find a detailed campaign overview.

* ESA Member States in 2012
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
Cooperating States
Canada, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia.

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