BEXUS

Balloon-borne EXperiments for University Students

BEXUS is an annual stratospheric research balloon program.

The BEXUS programme allows students from universities and higher education colleges across Europe to carry out scientific and technological experiments on research balloons. Each year, two balloons are launched, carrying up to 20 experiments designed and built by student teams.

BEXUS experiments are lifted by a balloon with a volume of 12 000 m³ to a maximum altitude of 30 km, depending on total experiment mass (40-100 kg). The flight duration is 2-5 hours

The BEXUS programme is realised under a bilateral Agency Agreement between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB). The Swedish share of the payload has been made available to students from other European countries through a collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

EuroLaunch, a cooperation between the Esrange Space Center of SSC and the Mobile Rocket Base (MORABA) of DLR, is responsible for the campaign management and operations of the launch vehicles. Experts from ESA, SSC and DLR provide technical support to the student teams throughout the project.

BEXUS is launched from SSC, Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.