SWEDISH SPACE ACTIVITIES - AN OVERVIEW WITH A FOCUS ON BALLOONS AND ROCKETS

The paper gives a brief overview of Swedish space activities with a focus on balloon and rocket projects, launched or scheduled for launch in the near future from Esrange Space Center. Several on-going national balloon and rocket projects are described in brief. Sweden is also a major player in sounding rocket activities within the ESA Elips programme as provider of launch services and developer of modules for microgravity experiments. Another important activity, described below, is the student programme REXUS/BEXUS, carried out within the framework of bilateral agreement between DLR and SNSB, and in collaboration with ESA. It should also be noted that several other balloons and rockets have been launched from Esrange Space Center during the reporting period. The present paper focuses, however, on the projects led by Swedish Principal Investigators and activities with a major involvement of Swedish scientists and engineers.