The Swedish space base Esrange in Kiruna has reached an important milestone with the launch of its 600th sounding rocket, MAPHEUS-15. The rocket was launched this morning and reached an altitude of 309 kilometers. Onboard was a payload with 21 scientific experiments in areas such as materials research and biological tests on human cells, conducted during seven minutes of weightlessness, according to the press release.

– I am very proud of this milestone which highlights many years of international collaborations at Esrange and hundreds of successful rocket missions, says Lennart Poromaa, site manager at Esrange, in the press release.

The launch is part of the MAPHEUS program, a Swedish-German collaboration between SSC and the German space organization DLR. Thomas Voigtmann, project manager for MAPHEUS at DLR, expresses appreciation for the partnership:

– We are grateful for the many years of productive cooperation during which we have grown and developed together, says Voigtmann.

The payload is expected to be returned to Esrange by helicopter tomorrow for further analysis and processing of the experiment results.