Bringing an experiment from Earth to the International Space Station is expensive. That's why many experiments are tested on earth - or better: in the air, during parabolic flights in converted airliners. Researchers from THM and JLU have completed such a flight campaign with variable gravity; they were on board themselves.
A campaign usually consists of three to four days of flying. On each flight day, 31 parabolas are carried out, each with around 22 seconds of reduced gravity. This gives scientists the ability to switch samples, change experiment configurations, and respond directly to the experiment's behavior in microgravity. This makes parabolic flights an ideal test environment. By modifying the flight maneuver, various reduced gravity conditions can be created to create weightlessness or lunar or Mars-like gravity conditions.
