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Students to Go Weightless in NASA Test Flight
Four undergraduate mechanical engineering students take their fluid dynamics research project aboard a Boeing KC-135A aircraft this week 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 that 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 has been training and preparing in Houston since March 13 and will return March 22. Later this week, the group boards the aircraft for two flights. Each flight, lasting 60-80 minutes, consists of a series of approximately 30 "parabolic zero-g" maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico in which the plane climbs from an altitude of 24,000 feet to 34,000 feet and then returns to 24,000 in just over 60 seconds, creating a weightless environment for the experiment. At the end of the zero-g maneuvers, teams/experiments are also 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/. Media interested in high-resolution photographs should contact group advisor Mark Weislogel, 503-725-4292 or mmw@cecs.pdx.edu.
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 that 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 has been training and preparing in Houston since March 13 and will return March 22. Later this week, the group boards the aircraft for two flights. Each flight, lasting 60-80 minutes, consists of a series of approximately 30 "parabolic zero-g" maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico in which the plane climbs from an altitude of 24,000 feet to 34,000 feet and then returns to 24,000 in just over 60 seconds, creating a weightless environment for the experiment. At the end of the zero-g maneuvers, teams/experiments are also 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/. Media interested in high-resolution photographs should contact group advisor Mark Weislogel, 503-725-4292 or mmw@cecs.pdx.edu.
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