Preliminary results from HEDGEHOG REXUS project – A sounding rocket experiment on accelerations, vibrations and heat flow

During flight, a sounding rocket is subject to a unique environment - severe vibrations and substantial heat flux. In order to design payloads, precise measurement of these conditions is required. This paper presents preliminary results from HEDGEHOG REXUS Project, whose scientific goal was to characterise the thermal and dynamic environment of REXUS sounding rockets. For this purpose, two new sensors have been designed - mechanical acceleration amplifier/filter and heat flux measuring device. Both provided interesting data - vibration and heat flux profiles allowed identification of key flight phases and quantitative description of certain phenomena during flight was performed. The experiment validated the sensors and provided heating and vibration profiles. Applicability of results and conclusions for future REXUS launches is discussed in the following paper.