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European Space Agency

Press Release

ESA's free-fall laboratory poised to escape gravity's grip

24 March 2003
 
This 'Zero-G' Airbus A300 parked on the tarmac at Bordeaux-Mérignac
Airport is really a laboratory with wings. Within a week a dozen
scientific teams will be aboard it as it thrusts skyward, then
free-falls - and in so doing briefly cancels out the effect of
gravity.

ESA's 34th Parabolic Flight Campaign begins with a week of
preparation and training for the experimenters involved. Then from
next Tuesday French firm Novespace's specially-strengthened Airbus
takes off once a day for three days. High above the Gulf of Gascogne
it flies a series of parabolic arcs that briefly reproduce
microgravity conditions inside its padded cabin. 
 
It's as if the Airbus rides an invisible rollercoaster; its pilots
put it into a steep climb at full thrust, then cut its engines almost
to zero.

The plane is now subject only to the pull of gravity and begins to
trace a parabola through the sky - like the path of a ball thrown
into the air. Falling freely cancels out gravity's effects inside the
aircraft for some 20 seconds, until finally its pilots power up the
engines to return the Airbus to the horizontal. 

With 31 parabolas flown per two and a half hour flight that adds up
to about ten minutes of microgravity per day - a valuable resource
for scientists across Europe interested in how materials and living
matter act in the absence of weight. 

"The flight campaigns provide rapid and cost-effective access to
microgravity," said Vladimir Pletser, ESA Co-ordinator for the
Parabolic Flight Campaign. "Parabolic flights enable us to have a
very rapid turnaround from an initial proposal to flying the final
experiment, perhaps six months or less.

"Uniquely, the effects of the transition between gravity levels can
also be studied. Variable levels of gravity up to about 1.8G can be
generated by different aircraft manoeuvres, depending on the
particular requirements of the experimenters.

"And when it comes to human biology, experimenters can interact
directly with their subjects - something not usually possible in
space." 

Some well known test subjects are coming aboard this time. ESA
astronaut Frank De Winne will be reunited for a day with his
crewmates from last October's Odissea mission - Sergei Zaletin and
Yuri Lonchakov. 

The trio will serve as test subjects for an experiment by researchers
from Belgium's University of Leuven. They are investigating
cardiovascular response during weightlessness, a continuation of work
carried out during De Winne's eight-day Soyuz-ISS taxi flight. 

And among the other 11 experiments packed into the Zero-G Airbus, ESA
and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden are flight-testing a Pulmonary
Function System (PFS) intended for the International Space Station.
This team will be accompanied by Dutch ESA astronaut Dr Andre Kuipers
as a test subject. Kuipers is due to fly on a Soyuz taxi mission
early next year. 
 
"The PFS analyses the gases inspired and expired from a subject's
lungs," said PFS Project Manager John Ives. "This gives us data not
only on how their lungs are working in microgravity but also how
rapidly their blood circulates by seeing how quickly various gases
are absorbed."

Danish company Innovision has also collaborated on the PFS and hopes
to develop a version for use by hospital doctors. An earlier version
of this system - known as the Advanced Respiratory Monitoring System
2 (ARMS-2) - was flown on STS-107 in February 2003, then tragically
lost with the Columbia Shuttle and its crew. 

"This experiment demonstrates how their research goes on," said
Pletser. 
 
Two student teams who flew parabolic experiments last year are
returning to gather more results. A German team from the University
of Regensburg will observe how granular materials of different sizes
settle in microgravity. In normal conditions larger grains end up on
top - known to physicists as the 'Brazil nut effect' - but it isn't
known why. 

And students from the University of Technology of Helsinki will check
the error rate of compact discs burned in weightlessness, to assess
whether CDs are a suitable data storage medium for ISS.

The three campaign flights will be far from pleasure trips for the
dozen highly-motivated teams, Pletser emphasised: "20 seconds per
parabola is a very short time, but it can also be a very long time if
you're well-enough prepared.

"We tend to mix up the teams a little bit by adding already-flown
personnel with newcomers to try and avoid problems. A percentage of
people can end up being sick but it's difficult to predict who will
be susceptible. Researchers aren't bouncing around the cabin, they
stay strapped near their equipment to get the work done.

"But there's one well-netted section of cabin, where people can take
time out for a parabola and free-float themselves."

Pletser himself is a veteran, having flown through some 3400
parabolas in the last 15 years: "People experiencing microgravity for
the first time always look like they're trying to swim, kicking their
arms and legs as if the air around them is turning viscous. And they
have wide big eyes as they lose all their usual reference points.

"As for what it feels like... you can try and describe it as much as
you want, but it never comes close to the actual experience."
 
 
34th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign

 *   Day 2: sickness-free in zero-G
 
 *   Day 1: bubbles and light bulbs in microgravity

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