Mobile Rocket Base

The Mobile Rocket Base emerged from the "Working Group For Space Exploration", a common foundation of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the former German Laboratory for Aviation (DVL).

Since April 1969 the Mobile Rocket Base is located in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich, in the department "Space Operations and Astronaut Training" of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The first mobile campaign to study the solar eclipse in May 1966 on the Greek island of Euboea, on behalf of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), demonstrated the feasibility to move and set up extensive technical and scientific equipment in a short time in a remote location.

With five Nike-Apache rockets, artificial barium clouds (Aurora Borealis) were created in about 100 km altitude, in order to visualize the magnetic field lines.

Initially intended as a supplementary programme for the German Spacelab missions, the first launch of a TEXUS payload took place on December 13, 1977 with a two-stage Skylark rocket at Esrange.

Together with the Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy in Lindau (Harz, Germany), international balloon flights were carried out in Aire-sur-l'Adour (France), Mendoza (Argentina), and Hyderabad (India), to explore the chemical composition (and pollution) of the atmosphere in different altitudes and latitudes.

In the early years of German sounding rocket research, the payloads were designed and built by engineers and technicians from the companies Dornier, MBB, Kayser-Threde, and ERNO.

After the launch with a Japanese satellite launcher and a 7-day orbital flight, the landing of the EXPRESS capsule was planned to occur in the vicinity of the town of Coober Pedy (Australia).

Further experiments of this kind were the also successfully completed follow-up project SHEFEX II (launched in June 2012), as well as the scramjet engine research programs HIFiRE and Scramspace.