Falcon 20E jet samples rocket exhaust plume over Sweden

DLR, Germany's aerospace research centre, flew a Dassault Falcon 20E through the exhaust plume of a sub-orbital rocket to sample its emissions. The measurement flight came after the launch of a high-altitude sounding rocket for MAPHEUS, a programme that carries out microgravity experiments.

The rocket lifted off on 1 October from the Esrange space centre east of Kiruna in Sweden. Air traffic control reopened the airspace a few minutes after launch, according to DLR, which let the instrumented Falcon fly for about an hour at altitudes between 2,000m and 6,000m.

Anke Pagels-Kerp, DLR divisional board member for space, said the team wanted to establish that this kind of measurement is feasible and to work out the most effective way of carrying it out. She said the growing number of rocket launches, particularly those deploying large satellite constellations, is drawing more attention to how launches affect the atmosphere.

DLR said the main difficulty was the way the exhaust plume spreads and thins, which required flying the Falcon as precisely as possible to capture the data. Pagels-Kerp said reliable emissions figures could support research into atmospheric effects and into propellants with a lower climate impact.

MAPHEUS has launched sounding rockets roughly annually since its first flight in May 2009. The latest, MAPHEUS-17, used a vehicle about 12m long with a mass of 2.3t and a 360kg payload. It flew for 16 minutes and reached an altitude of nearly 300km. Its lower stage was powered by a Red Kite solid-fuel motor developed by Bayern-Chemie for DLR and in series production since 2024, while an Improved Malemute motor drove the upper stage.