The REXUS/BEXUS (Rocket and Balloon Experiments for University Students) programme allows students from universities and higher education colleges across Europe to carry out scientific and technological experiments on research rockets and balloons. Each year, two rockets and two balloons are launched. We carried out two successful experiment (TECHDOSE and CoCoRAD) on board BEXUS balloons in the past with the help of BME (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) MTA EK (Hungarian Academy of Sciences , Centre for Energy Research. We’ve won the opportunity to perform cosmic radiation measurements on REXUS-17 with the experiment REM-RED (GM Sounding Rocket Experiment to Measure the CosmicRadiation and Estimate its Dose Contribution). This rocket will be launched int he spring of 2015 from ESRANGE spaceport in Northen Sweeden. Until then we have several milestones to complete and much work to do as we’re just at the very beginning of the design phase.

Our goal is to develop a complex measurement system based on Geiger- Müller tubes that is capable of working in the harsh environment on board the rocket. Therefore we have to fulfil countless mechanical, thermal and electronic requirements. Our measurement method allows us to determine orientation depedence of cosmic radiation and it’s dose contribution as we use orthogonal tubes.

We’ve found strong orientation depedence in cosmic radiation during our TECHDOSE experiment up to the altitude of 30 km and we’d like to extend our measurements up to 100 km, therefore we need a sounding rocket to fly in this region. We’d also like to conclude on characteristics of the radiation environment especially on dose contribution and orientation depedence.

Images of current design: