Experiment in Reduced Gravity

Alumni & Graduate Students Experiment in Reduced Gravity

This video was shot in August 2011 during the verification and validation flight experiment for the On-Orbit Propellant Storage and Transfer System being designed by the United Launch Alliance's Advanced Programs Department. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate student Nathan Silvernail ('10, DB) designed and built the first ever working prototype of this technology and flew it on-board NASA's reduced gravity aircraft 25,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico via NASA's Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology (FAST) program.

Silvernail's adviser, mechanical engineering professor Sathya Gangadharan, ULA collaborator Peter Wilson, propulsion engineer Keith Schlee ('04, '06, DB), and Alvar Saenz-Otero, associate director of MIT's Space Systems Lab, accompanied Silvernail on this flight to help make it a success.

Video courtesy of Nathan Silvernail.