The German Aerospace Center plans to purchase 80 Red Kite solid-propellant rocket motors from Bayern-Chemie for future scientific and technology demonstration flights. A procurement notice published on November 2, 2026, sets out the intended purchase for the center’s Mobile Rocket Base, known as MORABA. European Spaceflight reported the procurement on November 10.
The proposed order covers motors described as ITAR-free, meaning they are outside the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations. It would supply propulsion for MORABA’s sounding rockets, which carry experiments on short suborbital flights. These missions support research during ascent, brief periods of microgravity, and the return through the atmosphere.
DLR’s notice describes manufacturing, qualification oversight, delivery, and associated accessories. It identifies Bayern-Chemie as the holder of the manufacturing rights and the qualified supplier following a 30-day European Union market consultation. The procurement is being pursued through a negotiated procedure without a prior call for competition. The notice is listed on TED, the EU’s public procurement publication service.
A Motor Built for Research Missions
Red Kite was developed jointly by DLR and Bayern-Chemie to provide propulsion for sounding rockets. A 2025 technical paper by engineers from the two organizations describes it as a commercially available motor that can serve as a booster beneath another stage or operate as an upper stage. Two Red Kite motors can also be combined in one launch vehicle.
The paper lists a motor length of 3.44 meters, a diameter of 559 millimeters, and a total mass of 1,170 kilograms. Approximately 910 kilograms of that mass is propellant. Under the paper’s stated nominal conditions, a 10°C conditioning temperature and exhaust expansion into vacuum, the burn lasts approximately 13 seconds and maximum thrust is approximately 240 kilonewtons.
The solid propellant sits inside a steel casing. Its internal shape controls how much material burns at each point in the firing, producing higher thrust during the first part of the burn and lower thrust afterward. This provides the initial acceleration needed to launch the research vehicle.
Sounding rocket flights give instruments access to the upper atmosphere and space without placing them in orbit. After propulsion ends, a research payload can coast through a free-fall portion of its flight. Experiments carried together experience a short period of microgravity before returning to Earth.
From Qualification to Scientific Flights
DLR’s first-flight account dates Red Kite’s initial launch to November 13, 2023, from Andøya in northern Norway. The single-stage research vehicle reached an altitude of 71 kilometers and transmitted measurements to a ground station during flight.
The mission also carried the Air Breathing Propulsion Experiment – Technology Demonstrator. Researchers used it to investigate airflow in a supersonic combustion propulsion system and test thermal protection concepts. MORABA handled vehicle integration, the onboard computer, radar tracking, and mission planning.
The engineers’ 2025 paper records static qualification firings at Sweden’s Esrange Space Center in August 2023 and the start of serial production in October that year. It identifies MAPHEUS-14 in February 2024 and MAPHEUS-15 in November 2024 as subsequent flights using Red Kite beneath an Improved Malemute second stage.
A later mission demonstrated a configuration powered by two Red Kite motors. DLR reported that MAPHEUS-16 launched from Esrange on November 12, 2025, carrying approximately 500 kilograms of scientific payload. The rocket reached almost 260 kilometers and provided just over six minutes of microgravity for 21 experiments.
The payload returned under two parachutes and was recovered by helicopter. Its experiments included additive manufacturing and studies of biological samples under reduced-gravity conditions.
