OTD in Space – May 2: Maser 10 Launches on Final Flight of Skylark Rocket

On May 2, 2005, the Skylark sounding rocket launched on its 441st and final flight. [‘On This Day in Space’ Video Series on Space.com]

Skylark was a British sounding rocket designed to carry European research experiments into the upper atmosphere and beyond the boundary of space. The last Skylark rocket launched with a Swedish mission called Maser 10. This was the tenth mission of the Swedish Space Corporation's microgravity rocket program. Its payload included four experiment modules with three experiments in fluid physics and two biology experiments. One biology experiment studied the way microgravity affects metabolism in cells from mammals. The other looked at a protein that affects inflammation and immunity in humans. The physics experiments investigated how microgravity affects the evaporation, thermal radiation and convection in liquids. Maser 10 carried these experiments to an altitude of 155 miles, or 93 miles above the atmosphere, where the rocket experienced six minutes of weightlessness.