HOUSTON, Texas – A team of aerospace engineering students from The University of Texas at Austin will travel to NASA Johnson Space Center’s Ellington Field to conduct nanosatellite experiments aboard the agency’s “Weightless Wonder” aircraft, which produces weightlessness for up to 25 seconds.
Each year, the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to propose, build and fly a reduced-gravity experiment. The seven-member University of Texas at Austin team (called the UT Microgravity Team) will be among 40 undergraduate college teams participating.
The team will perform its experiment aboard NASA’s C-9 aircraft, which produces weightlessness 18 to 25 seconds at a time by executing a series of about 30 parabolas – a steep climb followed by a free fall – over the Gulf of Mexico. During the free falls, the students will be able to gather data in the unique environment and experience weightlessness.
The UT Microgravity Team’s free-floating experiment will test nanosatellites, which are becoming common in the space industry because of their compact size and economical cost. Their satellites operate as a group, but deploy from the launch vehicle as a single unit. The zero-gravity experiment will allow the team to acquire data corresponding to the motion when two nanosatellites separate from each other. Using a mechanism affixed to one of the satellites, the students want to determine if the separation causes excessive rotations, which could lead to guidance navigation and control problems. Following their flight, the team will evaluate their findings and provide results to NASA and other researchers.
“The UT Microgravity Team is excited to represent The University of Texas at Austin as we test an innovative method to separate nanosatellites in zero-g,” says team leader Johnny Sangree. “Many satellite designers around the world will benefit from our experiment, which will determine the feasibility of this promising new separation method.”
The student team was selected from more than 70 proposals based on scientific merit and educational outreach potential. University of Texas at Austin team members include: seniors John Boiles, Jillian Marsh, Jeffrey Mikeska, Josh Payne and Sangree, junior Karl McDonald, sophomore Joseph Gauthier, and faculty advisor and associate professor Glenn Lightsey. All invested numerous hours into researching and building their experiment. As part of the project, they also made presentations to local schools and events to share their unique experiences and discoveries.
“We are excited that our program provides once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for aspiring scientists and engineers to study and understand their craft,” says Douglas Goforth, RGSFOP program manager. “The students gain useful skills by participating in the program through collaborative planning and teamwork.”
The team will arrive at Ellington Field on July 10. They will then go through physiological training and fly their experiment twice between 9-11 a.m. on July 17 and 18.
For more information about the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Program and the UT Microgravity Team, visit: http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov or http://txseparation.ae.utexas.edu.
