Brazilian Sounding Rockets And Microgravity Missions
- Paper number
IAC-07-A2.5.05
- Author
Mr. Flavio de Azevedo Correa, Jr, Instituto de Aeron, Brazil
- Coauthor
Dr. Ariovaldo Felix Palmerio, Instituto de Aeron, Brazil
- Coauthor
Mr. Luiz Roberto Del Monaco, Instituto de Aeron, Brazil
- Year
2007
- Abstract
The main issue of this paper is to inform some highlight aspects about the Brazilian Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço, IAE) activities assisting the Brazilian Microgravity Program (BMP) and other scientific programs. For this purpose, an approach of the BMP will be done, talking initially about the program and its flight missions. At this point it is good to report that IAE is responsible not only for developing and manufacturing the sounding rockets employed into the BMP missions, but it is also responsible for the entire flight campaign. Traditionally our sounding rockets have been used for decades to carry out studies and research of the high atmosphere layers. Nowadays our major national demand for sounding rocket missions comes from the BMP. Established in 1998 by the Brazilian Space Agency (Agência Espacial Brasileira, AEB), the BMP not only has the goal to provide a regular sequence of flights opportunities to the Brazilian scientific community to perform experiments and/or test hardware facilities into a microgravity environment, but it is also responsible for the use of ISS facilities allocated to Brazil. Although it is a national program, AEB endorses international cooperation by encouraging the establishment of partnerships between Brazilian and international scientific communities. As a matter of fact, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR/MORABA) and the IAE are already partners: the former provides the microgravity platform for the first flight missions and the latter provides the rocket motor. The microgravity platforms are based on the European TEXUS technology. This paper will also inform the BMP structure reassuring its goals and support activities, showing some of the program perspectives and finally reporting some aspects of its recent suborbital (Cumã II) and orbital (Centenary) missions. Regarding the sounding rockets used into this Program, Brazil has two operational vehicles for microgravity purposes: the VS-30 and the VSB-30. The VS-30 has a successful flight history of carrying six European payloads, four of them with Brazilian experiments onboard. It is a single-stage vehicle based on the first stage of the SONDA III rocket, capable to transport payloads with mass up to 230 kg during at least 240 seconds of ballistic flight above 110 km. Selected as a substitute for the Skylark 7 vehicle into European and Germany Microgravity Programs, the VSB-30 is a two-stage vehicle based on a boosted version of the VS-30 rocket, capable to transport payloads with mass up to 400 kg during at least 360 seconds of ballistic flight above 110 km. In a successful mission, its first qualification flight took place in 2004, transporting a qualification payload from DLR/MORABA into a nominal trajectory. Nowadays, the BMP published its 3rd Announcement of Opportunity (AO). The 3rd AO is selecting experiments for two different missions: a suborbital mission to be launched from Alcântara in 2008, and an orbital one to perform experiments at ISS in 2009.
- Abstract document