QUANTUS-1 is the first BEC apparatus operated in the drop tower. It combines laser cooling of Rb-atoms with subsequent evaporative cooling in a magnetic chip trap to generate BECs of more than 10000 atoms. It has been used in several proof of principal experiments, among them the first BEC generation on a microgravity platform and the first BEC matterwave interferometry in free fall.  more...

QUANTUS-2 is a second generation BEC apparatus, set up in a catapult capsule for operation in the drop tower, where we investigate matterwave interferometry in extended free fall.more...

In the PRIMUS drop capsule setup we apply an all optical approach to BEC generation in microgravity. The key component is a far-off resonant, high-power fibre laser (1064 nm) to implement a crossed optical dipole trap for evaporative cooling of an atomic ensemble. The system is equipped to cool two atomic species, Rb and K. more...

In this project we use the data obtained by the errant GALILEO navigation satellites GSAT0201 and GSAT0202 for a precision test of relativity theory. more...