Did you know that in microgravity you can better study liquid metals and how they solidify?
Research in space on metallurgy helps improving production processes while enhancing properties for stronger, lighter and durable materials.
The step to space research is closer than you might think. Get involved with spaceflight research via https://www.esa.int/spaceflightAO. Find out about our commercial partnerships and opportunities in human and robotic exploration via https://www.esa.int/explorationpartners to run your research in microgravity as well.
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
Did you know that in microgravity we are preparing one of the most promising fuels for the future?
Microgravity is helping to find answers and models to refine the processes needed to efficiently burn solid fuel like iron dust. Are we witnessing the rise of a new “Iron Age”? Could we use metal powders instead of petrol to fuel our cars?
Solid fuels are used for burning a match, lighting a sparkler on New Year’s Eve as well as the fuel inside the boosters of Ariane and of other rockets. But metals such as iron can also burn, in powder form, and are entirely smokeless and carbon free.
Metals could be produced using clean energy, such as from solar cells or wind turbines. That electricity is stored as chemical energy in the metal powder at energy densities that are competitive with fossil fuels. This has the potential to reduce greenhouse gasses emission globally, but a barrier to implementing this technology is the development of combustion systems that can efficiently burn the metal fuels, which requires a solid understanding of their combustion physics.
To understand the physics of metal fuel combustion, a cluster of iron powder needs to be suspended for about 30 seconds, the time needed to observe and study how a flame propagates. Researchers used sounding rockets and parabolic flights to run experiments in weightlessness and to validate existing models, yielding promising results.
The density of iron particles and the composition of gases in the combustion chamber are essential parameters, like in a petrol car engine. Microgravity allows for the study of the laws of flame propagation, to optimise parameters in industrial burner designs, and reduce impact on the environment.
These space experiments also help us understand similar phenomena, such as the spreading of contagious microbes and forest fires.
In a vote of confidence for the technique a student team at TU Eindhoven in The Netherlands worked with industrial partners to design a metal combustion facility now installed at Swinkels Family Brewers, subsidised by the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant, used to produce steam for the brewing process.
The step to space research is closer than you might think. Get involved with spaceflight research via https://www.esa.int/spaceflightAO. Find out about our commercial partnerships and opportunities in human and robotic exploration via https://www.esa.int/explorationpartners to run your research in microgravity as well.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA’s parabolic flight project coordinator Neil Melville explains why 40 researchers working on 12 technologically-advanced experiments are put in an aircraft that flies at maximum thrust in repeated 50° angles at the limits of the Novespace aircraft’s design.
Parabolic flights offer sessions of 20 seconds of zero gravity giving a total of 10 minutes of weightlessness each flight. The advantage of parabolic flights over other platforms for experimentation in altered gravity is that researchers can join the flight and interact with their experiment – fine tuning hardware, running tests on human subjects or changing parameters on the fly. The experiments are carefully chosen for potential benefits, safety and uniqueness.
Neil highlights some of the experiments on ESA’s 72nd campaign that covered disciplines as diverse as astronomy, cooling techniques, metallurgy, weather and human physiology.
The Progra2 experiment is creating clouds of matter and recording how light is scattered by micrometre-sized particles. The carbon-based dust is chosen to resemble the clouds found in our Solar System such as around asteroids and comets. Knowing how light is scattered by these particles in microgravity will help interpret observations made from telescopes and increase our understanding the Universe.
An experiment from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium is looking at healing wounds with bio-mimetic materials by submitting them to mechanical stresses typical in weightlessness. The knowledge acquired will pave the way for the development of biophysical models and a have a direct impact on the industrial market of wearable electronics.
The VIP-GRAN team is looking into how particles behave in reduced gravity to understand the underlying physics in detail. On this flight they investigated the jamming of particles as they flow through small openings. This can be an annoyance on Earth when salt gets stuck in the shaker for example, but the phenomenon is influenced by gravity and the researchers want to know more. This was the ninth flight for the VIP-GRAN team and who are working towards having a version of their experiment fly on the International Space Station with even more weightless time.
Air Zero-G exterior footage courtesy of Airborne Films and Novespace.
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
On 7 February 2018, 10 years to the day that Europe’s Columbus space laboratory was launched to the International Space Station, 20 lucky clubbers got a taste of weightlessness – not to conduct gravity-free science but to party with superstar DJs Steve Aoki, W&W and Le Shuuk.
Taking off from Frankfurt airport and organised by BigCityBeats, the WORLD CLUB DOME project served as a teaser party for a bigger event on Earth in June. The aircraft flew up and down angled at 45º – at the top of the curve the passengers and experiments experience around 20 seconds of microgravity. Before and after the weightless period, increased gravity of up to 2 g is part of the ride.
ESA astronauts Pedro Duque and Jean-Francois Clervoy joined the weightless flight and provided background and safety tips to the DJs and party-goers.
The aircraft was on loan from its usual airport in Bordeaux, France, where it is used for scientific research and testing equipment for spaceflight. These flights are the only way to test microgravity with humans without going through lengthy astronaut-training and flights to the International Space Station. For this reason, parabolic flights are often used to validate space instruments and train astronauts before spaceflight.
ESA’s parabolic flight campaigns for science and technology investigations are generally performed twice a year, in spring and autumn.
ESA, Fraport Frankfurt and the City of Frankfurt and BigCityBeats combined a fascination of science with the joy and fun of dancing in this world’s-first flight.
This event was the official pre-party to the BigCityBeats WORLD CLUB DOME “The Hollywood Edition” taking place 1/2/3 June 2018 in Frankfurt. More info via http://www.worldclubdome.com
If you fly a plane in the right way at the right speed, you can be weightless for a few seconds. By throwing the aircraft into an orbit-like path within Earth’s atmosphere, you can enter the wonderful world of weightlessness.
It is one of the best ways to simulate the environment of space, and a valuable experimental tool for scientists with a special interest in microgravity. If they want to find out how the brain works, study the natural posture of humans in space, or how water boils in a weightless environment, this is the way to do it.
Take a journey into a free-floating world of the parabola in this edition of Space.
