News

Mechanical Engineering students go weightless in NASA test flight

Four undergraduate mechanical engineering students took their fluid dynamics research project aboard a Boeing KC-135A aircraft in March 2003 as part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.

The program, run by the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, recreates the zero-gravity "weightless" environment of space flight for testing and training purposes necessary for development and verification of space hardware, experiments, crew training, and basic research. The PSU group was one of only 69 teams selected from over 400 applicants. This is the first time a group from Portland State has participated.

The project, "Steady State Two-Phase Flow in a Reduced Gravity Environment," tests how a liquid and its vapor flow in a zero-gravity (zero-g) environment. Results may help NASA researchers design better, safer, and lighter propulsion, thermal control and life support systems for space flight. The students--Michael Severson, Megan Sala, Jamie Kelso and Michael Bacich--developed the project in conjunction with Mark Weislogel, an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering who worked at NASA before coming to PSU.

The group participated in two flights, each lasting 60-80 minutes, consisting of a series of approximately 30 "parabolic zero-g" maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. The aircraft climbed from an altitude of 24,000 feet to 34,000 feet and then returned to 24,000 in about 60 seconds, creating a weightless environment for the experiment. At the end of the zero-g maneuvers, teams/experiments also were treated to approximately 30 seconds of lunar gravity (1/6-g) and 40 seconds of martian gravity (1/3-g).

For more information on the group and their flight, visit www.me.pdx.edu/~micro-g/.

To watch a movie of the experiment, click here.