Student Experiments in Zero-gravity

Parabolic Flights: To know how things behave in space

In order to be able to check equipment and experiments as if they were in space, you have to find a way by which you can get rid of gravity, which keeps your feet on the ground. The only possibility is in fact to have a vehicle in free fall, same as in space.

One of the vehicles you can use is the airplane, by having what we call "parabolic flights". The aircraft climbs with an angle of 45°, then the pilot cuts the motors and the plane start a "free fall", in fact following a path that is a parabola as if a stone was thrown to the sky. During that phase everything in the plane floats, the experiments and the people, they are in "zero-G"

When the descent angle is 45° (everything goes towards the ground at the end like the stone, the initial speed being not large enough to go in orbit), the pilot puts the motors on again and prepares for a new parabola. The pilot does that several times during a flight. ESA give a few lucky students (120 per year) the chance to fly with their experiments on one of these flights so that they can test and see what is happening in a real spacecraft when there are no rockets firing. If you want to know more, just go to http://www.estec.esa.nl/outreach/pfc/. Below are some examples, with pictures, of previous student experiments.

'Flying Fish', University of Lund, Sweden

'Space Soccer', Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal

'S.U.P.E.R.A.T', Universita degli studi di Palermo, Italy

'Flame', ENSMA, France