The European Space Agency‘s Maxus 5 sounding rocket mission was launched today at 6 GMT from Esrange, north of the Arctic Circle near Kiruna in northern Sweden.

The rocket, an 11.5-ton, solid-fueled Castor 4B, carried a 488 kilogram payload of five scientific experiments with their associated telemetry and video links. The experiments were stacked in five self-contained modules designed to investigate phenomena in biology, fluid physics, material science and fundamental physics.