experiments before advancing to the real microgravity environment, one of which is an aircraft that flies approximately parabolic maneuvers. However, this isn’t your normal commercial flight. This modified 727-200 doesn’t have windows and has only a few seats where researchers sit during takeoff and landing. The rest of the plane is padded and open for researchers and experiments to float and experience microgravity. In flight, the aircraft first enters a 45-degree climb, during which the passengers experience about 15-20 seconds of hypergravity (about 1.8-2g). Then, as the pilots bring the nose of the aircraft down and reduce thrust, everything and everyone aboard the aircraft enters free fall and experiences weightlessness for about 20 seconds. The aircraft then gains speed and pitches nose-down before the maneuver starts again for another parabola. In our AGTV, a scaled-down habitat only big enough for a Lego astronaut, is connected to a truss about two feet long, Successful slewing would on the other end of which is a set of spinning wheels. The ultimately allow for steering wheels’ rotation on one end causes the entire spacecraft to and navigation of the entire rotate in the opposite direction without the use of propelvehicle without the addition lant or similar resources. This is due to the principle of of a propulsion system. conservation of angular momentum. Stable rotation of the spacecraft induces a gravity vector along the direction of the truss and within the habitat. In our experiment, a mini-astronaut would only experience 0.1-0.4g of acceleration. We also investigated the use of a secondary spinning set of flywheels on the middle of the truss to slew or tilt, the rotation plane of the assembly in the remaining two axes. Successful slewing would ultimately allow for steering and navigation of the entire vehicle without the addition of a propulsion system. The successful completion of this project would be a step forward for a better understanding of the complicated dynamics behind the AGTV concept. Its performance could be applied to additional testing, and scaled to a larger model that would accommodate full-sized astronauts and provide 1g in their habitat.
Undergrads design, build, and test an artificial gravity spacecraft in a microgravity environment
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