Exciting news from ESA! This week, they unveiled the much-anticipated announcement of opportunity for experiment flights on sounding rockets. This includes the development of experiments under the ideation campaign “Exploration Science – Sounding Rocket Experiments.”
Thanks to this success and the strong demand from researchers for short-duration flights on sounding rockets, ESA plans to continue using sounding rockets as a research platform in the next program phase. This is subject to budget approval at the ESA Council Meeting at Ministerial Level in late 2025 (CM-25). The number of proposals submitted will likely influence the budget, so we encourage you to submit your ideas and proposals to ESA.
Furthermore, ESA extends the call also to reduced gravity requirements in the range of 1/100 g or Moon / Mars-g. This is the first time that the demand for such a reduced platform is evaluated and scientist with this specific need have the chance to apply.
Applications can be submitted through ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP), accessible via the provided link.
ESA KEY DATES
• Online Q&A session : 17/04/2025 TBC, a Teams Link will be provided.
• Application Deadline : 16/05/2025 at 23:59 CEST
• Notification of Selection : TBD not before 30/09/2025
Six minutes of high-quality microgravity for your scientific experiment is available.