Computer aided design schematic of the experimental setup (adapted from Salter et al. 2009). The particles are stored in an aluminium colosseum (1) which is rotated (2) to line up two colosseum holes with two diametrically opposed motorised pistons (3) which collides the particles either with a 52 mm diameter ice target (4) placed at the centre of the collision volume or with each other when the target is removed. The system is passively cooled by passing liquid nitrogen through a cooling ring (5) prior to take-off. The particles are kept within the colosseum and protected from radiative heating by an aluminium shield (6), and a 45 kg copper block (7) acts as a thermal reservoir, keeping the system cool during the flight. The entire set up is enclosed within a vacuum chamber (8).