ITEL experiment module and its flight on MASER 10

The Interfacial Turbulence in Evaporating Liquids (ITEL) experiment module flew in microgravity during 6 minutes and 1 second on the Sounding Rocket MASER 10 on May 2, 2005. Swedish Space Corporation and Lambda-X, Belgium, developed the ITEL module under contract from the European Space Agency (ESA). The objective of the experiment was to observe cellular convection (Marangoni-Bénard instability) in an evaporating highly volative liquid with a free surface. The experiment module contains the experiment cell. An interferometric optical tomograph, with six viewing directions, measures the 3-dimensional distribution of temperature in the evaporating liquid and a Schlieren optical system visualizes the convective motions and deformations of the liquid surface. After microgravity is achieved, the liquid is injected into the cell and a free liquid surface is established and kept flat. The evaporation rate of the free surface is controlled by regulating the gas pressure and gas flow. The two optical systems worked nominally during the flight and the scientific results are under evaluation.SCOPUS: cp.pinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe