Scientific tests in weightlessness are the focus of the mission in northern Sweden
The international transport company Gebrüder Weiss is the official logistics partner for the SubOrbital Express rocket mission of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and is transporting twelve scientific experiments to Kiruna in northern Sweden for this project. The SSC will be conducting the “SubOrbital Express 3 (S1X-3M15)” mission at its Esrange Space Center near Kiruna from November 14 to 24, in which the experiments will be flown in space and their behavior in a weightless environment studied. The purpose is to gain insights relevant to research and the work of astronauts in space.
“As Swedish Space Corporation, we enable universities, research teams and start-ups to conduct research in space. Many of the experiments have direct consequences for science and thus can impact the entire world,” says Stefan Krämer, Program Manager for SubOrbital Express, Swedish Space Corporation. Logistics also has an important role to play in implementing the project: “It is essential that the equipment is delivered to the rocket range on time and, most importantly, safely. Gebrüder Weiss is a logistics partner that we can really trust,” says Krämer.
Frank Haas, Head of Corporate Brand Strategy & Communications at Gebrüder Weiss: “We support the Swedish Space Corporation with our logistics expertise and would like to contribute to the further development of space travel. Future-oriented mobility projects such as the rocket mission play an important role for Gebrüder Weiss.” Just last year, Gebrüder Weiss demonstrated its capability in logistics in Israel during the simulation of a mission by astronauts to Mars.
About the “SubOrbital Express 3” mission
Will clocks withstand the forces and vibrations of a rocket launch? How can the health of astronauts in space be better monitored? How do cells in the body behave when they are no longer exposed to the effects of gravity? These tests in weightlessness, along with a range of others, will be the focus of the research teams from Australia, Costa Rica, Portugal, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden in the SSC’s 15th rocket mission.
Gebrüder Weiss is organizing the transport of the experiments from SSC’s head office in Solna near Stockholm to Kiruna in northern Sweden, 1,200 kilometers away. The tests will be sent into space from the Esrange Space Center on November 22. The parabolic trajectory will result in six minutes of weightlessness. The experiments will then land in an uninhabited area north of Esrange, from where they will be brought back to the base by helicopter and then evaluated by the researchers.
Stefan Krämer (Swedish Space Corporation) on the significance of the mission
