Newswise — Two teams of Missouri S&T students will conduct experiments on the agency's famous "Weightless Wonder" aircraft. This is the fourth time Missouri S&T students have been selected to participate in NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, which allows undergraduate teams to design and construct an experiment to be conducted in microgravity. In 2007, 2005 and 2003, Missouri S&T students welded aluminum and studied its behavior with a goal of improving the speed of space construction.
This summer, the Miners in Space Weld Team will conduct its final welding experiments while aboard NASA's C-9 aircraft, the military version of a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 jet airliner.
"The team hopes to collect data that will lead to a better understanding of how to weld in space," says team leader Michelle Rader, a senior in aerospace engineering from Marshfield, Mo. "We have updated our electronics to a computer-based system that will control the robotic system that moves the weld gun across the test strip. Students on the aircraft will start and stop the welding process using a touch-screen monitor."
The Miners in Space Thruster Team will also take a trip on the C-9 aircraft to test the efficiency of a refrigerant-based propulsion system in the microgravity environment.
"The propulsion system, being developed at Missouri S&T, is a cold gas thruster that uses the refrigerant R-134a as propellant," says team leader Joseph Siebert, a graduate student in aerospace engineering from St. Louis. "If the design proves to be successful, the system will be incorporated in the spacecraft currently being designed and built by the Missouri S&T Satellite Team."
To create a temporary environment of near weightlessness for the experiments, the C-9 aircraft will fly in parabolic patterns. As passengers on the plane, the Missouri S&T students will be accelerated quickly from about 26,000 feet to roughly 39,000 feet, and then free fall with the engines idled back down in a 45-degree arc over the Gulf of Mexico. The plane's choreographed maneuvers will create between 40 and 50 periods of weightlessness, each lasting 25 seconds.
In addition to preparing for the summer trip, the two teams are conducting several programs for the local and regional community, as K-12 outreach is an important aspect of NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.
"The Miners in Space teams regularly visit elementary and middle schools, teaching students about microgravity and why each team is doing their research," says team advisor Dr. Hank Pernicka, associate professor of aerospace engineering at Missouri S&T. "Presentations are also given to high school students, groups of young females and underprivileged students."
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