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“Chunder Down-Under”: Parabolic flights in Australia now on offer from Beings Systems

Presented by:

Kieran Blair

Kieran Blair

Beings Systems

 

Andrew Kerle

Beings Systems

 

Mathew Biggs

Beings Systems

 

Gail Iles

RMIT University, Antares Space

 

Europe, Japan, China, Russia, Canada, Brazil, India and the USA have regular, albeit expensive, access to microgravity facilities and platforms, such as the 100 metre drop tower in Bremen, Germany, a suite of sounding rockets in Kiruna, Sweden and parabolic flights in USA and France. In Australia, the Queensland University of Technology operated a 30 metre drop tower for a number of years but it has since been decommissioned. Three spaceports are currently under development in Australia in the Northern Territory (Equatorial Launch Australia), Queensland (Gilmour Space Technologies) and South Australia (Southern Launch) however, none of these sites possess or are currently launching sounding rockets. The ‘Beings Systems’ company formed in 2019 with the goal of offering a parabolic flight service in Australia, with an option to service other countries in the Southern hemisphere. We operate a Pitts Model 12 aircraft in New South Wales and a Marchetti S211 Jet in Victoria. We have flown 3 customer parabolic flights to date, in 2-seater aircraft, achieving 10-15 seconds microgravity of 0.05 (+/- 0.005) m/s2 . We present here accelerometer output from a number of flights, flight profiles and payload constraints/characteristics. Beings Systems has partnered with Australian start-up ‘Antares SPACE’ for the development of payload chambers and provision of Zero-G flight personnel. Future plans include the modification of a Learjet business jet for the provision of a national microgravity platform. Flights will allow scientific research in microgravity, testing of industry hardware and physiology studies on human test subjects. We present 3 case studies for the larger aircraft including a physical sciences experiment to investigate combustion; the donning & doffing of a spacesuit and the deployment of a spacecraft antenna; all under the condition of microgravity.

Category:

Space life sciences

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