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Solidification Furnace Developed for Sounding Rockets: Santa Branca Mission

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Abstract

Brazil has a Microgravity Program mainly based mainly on sounding rockets experiments. The Santa Branca Mission, aimed to qualify the Brazilian Suborbital Microgravity Platform (MQ-MSP). The group of the Coordination of Applied Research and Technological Development (COPDT) of the Brazilian Space Research Institute (INPE) participated with an experiment in a fast solidification furnace, capable of producing temperatures up to 900 °C, which was tested with semiconductor and metal alloys. This paper describes the construction and performance of this furnace during the last suborbital flight, the Santa Branca Mission, which took place in 2022. The solidification furnace is now qualified and ready to be used by other institutions for sounding rocket flights.

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Data Availability

The data of this study are available from the authors upon request.

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Funding

The authors are grateful to the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) for supporting the present project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Associate Laboratory of Sensors and Materials, Brazilian Space Research Institute – INPE, Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, 12227-010, São José Dos Campos, SP, Brazil

    Rafael Cardoso Toledo, Plínio Ivo Gama Tenório, Marcelo Sampaio, José Pelogia da Silva, Irajá Newton Bandeira & Chen Ying An

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  1. Rafael Cardoso Toledo
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  2. Plínio Ivo Gama Tenório
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  3. Marcelo Sampaio
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  4. José Pelogia da Silva
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  5. Irajá Newton Bandeira
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  6. Chen Ying An
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Contributions

R.C.T., P.I.G.T., M.S., J.P.S., I.N.B. and C.Y.A. designed the solidification furnace experiment. J.P.S manufactured the mechanical system. M.S. designed and manufactured the electrical system. R.C.T, M.S. and C.Y.A. performed the experiments. R.C.T, P.I.G.T. and C.Y.A. analyzed the results. R.C.T. wrote the manuscript. P.I.G.T., M.S., I.N.B. and C.Y.A. reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rafael Cardoso Toledo.

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Toledo, R.C., Tenório, P.I.G., Sampaio, M. et al. Solidification Furnace Developed for Sounding Rockets: Santa Branca Mission. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 36, 18 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-024-10104-0

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