The British Skylark rocket motor performed its final mission May 2, launching a Maser 10 sounding rocket for the European Space Agency (ESA), Swedish Space Corp. said.

The Skylark was developed by the British government in the 1950s and performed 441 missions. The motor has been operated on a commercial basis since 1966, most recently by Sounding Rocket Services Ltd.

Maser 10, launched from Swedish Space’s facility in Esrange, near Kiruna, Sweden, carried five scientific experiments to an altitude of 252 kilometers, and the suite of experiments spent six minutes in microgravity.

The payload was damaged when the Maser rocket’s parachute system failed during descent, but “all indications show that the scientific objectives have been fulfilled,” Wolfgang Herfs, sounding rocket program manager for ESA, said in a statement. “Right now, we are almost certain that the far majority of all scientific samples are intact for further analysis and that the data stored onboard is readable.”