Sounding rocket experiments with ejectable payloads at KTH

Several experiments have been carried out or are in design phase under the lead of KTH using ejectable recoverable units to achieve variable scientific and technical objectives. This paper introduces the experiments withtheir goals, design solutions, results and lessons learned where appropriate. The RAIN (Rocket deployed Atmosphericprobes conducting Independent measurements in Northern Sweden) experiment used two radially ejected free flyers equipped with aerosol particle collection experiments. The MUSCAT (Multiple Spheres for Characterisation of Atmospheric Temperature) experiment used four free flyers ejected radially to retrieve the density, temperature and wind profiles. The ISAAC (Infrared Spectroscopy to Analyze the middle Atmosphere Composition) experiment will use two free flyers to derive the carbon dioxide by measuring the absorption of the infrared light on the line of sight between them. The SPIDER (Small Payloads for Investigation of Disturbances in Electrojet by Rockets) experiment will use a larger number (>4) of free flyers to measure electric and magnetic field, electron concentration and temperature in order to study the electrojet turbulence.