Materials research in weightlessness: When nanoparticles team up
At 9:25 a.m. on Oct. 21, 2022, the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) MAPHEUS-12 research rocket lifted off from Sweden’s ESRANGE rocket base near Kiruna. It reached an altitude of 260 kilometers and then sailed back to Earth on a parachute. On board were gold nanoparticles from the INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrücken. In a special experimental setup, they were used to study how particles agglomerate when no gravity acts on them.
