Our microgravity research programme, led by Professor Danail Obreschkow, regularly partners with the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct experiments aboard the Airbus A310 Zero G, the world’s largest suborbital microgravity facility.
These parabolic flights offer repeated phases of 20s-25-s of “microgravity” (~0.001g), as well as comparable phases of hypergravity (~1.8g). Depending on experimental design, it is also possible to request intermediate levels of gravity, such as lunar (0.17g) and martian (0.38g) gravity.
UWA-led research has collected over ten hours of microgravity via such flights, mainly dedicated to experiments aiming to unravel the mysterious physics of collapsing cavitation bubbles.
UWA Professor and private pilot Dongke Zhang has also led drop tower experiments, which offer even better levels of microgravity (~0.000001g) than parabolic flights but exhibit shorter phases of microgravity (<10s) and high accelerations (>5g) before and after.
The team can offer expertise on the design and conduct of microgravity experiments, as well as leverage essential partnerships for accessing parabolic flight capabilities and drop tower facilities.
