Zero Gravity Corporationhas successfully completed the latest ZERO-G Weightless Lab microgravity research flight. On November 17, ZERO-G clients tested equipment for future suborbital missions, studied the geology of Mars, deployed cube sats, evaluated fluid dynamics and analyzed customized devices for consuming liquids in space.
"ZERO-G's research program gives universities, corporations, government and individuals seeking to conduct serious investigations unprecedented access to microgravity," stated Terese Brewster, President and COO of ZERO-G.
"Now in our fourth year, ZERO's Weightless Lab continues to provide an international clientele with Martian, Lunar, zero and hyper-gravity environments for the study of terrestrial and space applications."
This international group of flight participants represented returning and first-time flyers from the Southwest Research Institute; University of Basel, Switzerland; CU Aerospace/University of Illinois partnership; Vostok Pty Ltd; NovaWurks, Inc.; and the California Institute of Technology.
Of the research program, Dan Durda, Ph.D., a planetary scientist with the Southwest Research Institute stated, "This kind of flight offers our team an opportunity to validate the design and operation of the experiments that we're going to fly on our upcoming suborbital space flights.
"It gave us a chance to test out ourselves as well – since we'll be there right alongside our experiments, we wanted to be sure to work out all the zero-g operational 'gotchas' before those really time-critical flights.
"Whether you're preparing for space flights or further parabolic research flights, nothing beats practice in the actual flight environment for working out the bugs in your hardware and for honing your team's zero g skills."
