Design and qualification of an UHV system for operation on sounding rockets

The sounding rocket mission MAIUS-1 has the objective to create the first Bose-Einstein condensate in space; therefore, its scientific payload is a complete cold atom experiment built to be launched on a VSB-30 sounding rocket. An essential part of the setup is an ultrahigh vacuum system needed in order to sufficiently suppress interactions of the cooled atoms with the residual background gas. Contrary to vacuum systems on missions aboard satellites or the international space station, the required vacuum environment has to be reached within 47 s after motor burn-out. This paper contains a detailed description of the MAIUS-1 vacuum system, as well as a description of its qualification process for the operation under vibrational loads of up to 8.1 g(RMS) (where RMS is root mean square). Even though a pressure rise dependent on the level of vibration was observed, the design presented herein is capable of regaining a pressure of below 5 x 10(-10) mbar in less than 40 s when tested at 5.4 g(RMS). To the authors' best knowledge, it is the first UHV system qualified for operation on a sounding rocket. (C) 2016 American Vacuum Society.