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A 10-tonne rocket broke into three high above its launch pad in Lapland
last week. Maxus 1, a rocket built jointly by Sweden and Germany, was designed
to compete with the space shuttle as a vehicle for experiments in microgravity.
Fifteen of the rockets are planned.

The cause of the disintegration is not yet known. ‘For the first 37
seconds everything was in order,’ said Jan Englund, of S-Range, the Swedish
space centre. ‘Then the rocket encountered a disturbance. But the guidance
system on the rocket was able to correct the problem.’ A few seconds later,
another ‘disturbance’ sent the rocket spinning out of control. It broke
into pieces 30 kilometres above its launch site.

‘We know it was a problem with the motor,’ said Englund. ‘We don’t know
exactly what caused the motor failure.’

The rocket, fuelled by a solid propellant, was made by Thiokol, the
American-based company that builds boosters for NASA’s space shuttle. The
rocket was designed to ascend to 1000 kilometres and spend 14 minutes in
microgravity, just long enough to complete the experiments on board. When
the rocket broke up, the payload compartment was saved by a parachute and
the experiments were recovered 60 kilometres from the launch pad.

Most of the experiments belonged to the European Space Agency, which
has lined up numerous experiments for the Maxus rockets. ‘We don’t think
we will lose ESA as a contractor,’ said Englund. ‘This was a problem that
can be fixed.’ Englund anticipates another liftoff within a year. ‘There
is a very big demand for microgravity payloads. The lead time for a microgravity
experiment on this rocket is only about a year, but on the shuttle it is
almost 10 years.’