Thirty young people will experience, on Friday, the sensation of zero gravity in a parabolic flight, the first carried out in Portugal, aboard a plane departing from the Beja Air Base, in an initiative of the Portuguese space agency.
The “Zero-G Portugal – Astronaut for a Day” initiative, which brings together students between the ages of 14 and 18 who were selected after qualifying contests, is promoted by Portugal Space, which aims to encourage the youngest to enter the space area, “ensuring the future of space at the national level”, according to Hugo André Costa, member of the board of directors of the Portuguese space agency.
The flight, departing from and returning to Air Base No. 11, of the Portuguese Air Force, is operated by the French company Novespace, a subsidiary of the French space agency (CNES).
Founded and chaired by former astronaut Jean-François Clervoy, who is concerned with following flights, Novespace carries out parabolic flights for scientific purposes (for European, French, German and Japanese space agencies) and for the general public (one flight one capacity private can cost 6,900 euros per person and is already sold out by February 2023).
In practice, the flight chartered by Portugal Space, which will be carried out by an Airbus A310 aircraft owned by Novespace, will simulate the absence of gravity that exists in space based on ascent and free fall maneuvers (parabolas) performed by the aircraft that will allow passengers to float inside it in cycles of around 20 to 25 seconds.
Three hours were allocated for the flight, in part for the preparation of the crew and passengers, but only 15 parabolas of one minute each will be executed, which will simulate a total of five to six minutes of zero gravity, to which they are subjected. astronauts when they work and live on the International Space Station, but for months.
During the flight, the Airbus will fly over the Portuguese coast and will remain in an area of airspace closed to other flights, which may be further north or south of the peninsula, depending on the weather.
Pedro da Silva Costa, an Air Force officer who works at Portugal Space for the Defense area, explained to Lusa that, if the weather conditions are favourable, the plane will fly over Monte Real and carry out maneuvers in an area where the F16 fighter is located. . Otherwise, the aircraft will head “below the Algarve”, to an area usually reserved for air and naval exercises.
Parabolic flights (along with underwater training) are practically the only means on Earth capable of reproducing the effect of weightlessness or microgravity on people. What allows this effect to be generated in the air are precisely the parabolas described by the plane.
Silva Costa added that the plane first makes a vertiginous ascent of approximately 7,600 meters in altitude, generating an acceleration of 1.8 times gravity on the ground for 20 seconds. At this point, passengers will feel heavier, as if they are almost twice their weight.
Then one of the pilots reduces the thrust of the aircraft’s engine to practically zero, causing it to describe a parabola.
The aircraft continues to climb until it reaches the turning point of the parabola, at an altitude of 8,500 meters, and then begins to descend.
“The descent lasts about 20 seconds, during which the passengers float due to the weightlessness created by the free fall of the plane,” explained the military man, adding that one of the pilots accelerates again, the passengers feel heavy again and the plane. “resumes stable horizontal flight” when “the angle with the horizontal reaches 45º”.
The aircraft performs these maneuvers 15 times. There are three pilots on board: one controls the angle of climb and descent of the “nose” of the aircraft, another controls the rotational movement to keep the wings horizontal, and a third, sitting behind the first two, controls the engine speed, warnings, temperatures and pressure
In addition to the fun they provide, parabolic flights “are crucial in the preparation of experiments, equipment and astronauts and allow scientists to test their experiences before embarking on a space mission,” said Pedro da Silva Costa.
The “Zero-G Portugal — Astronaut for a Day” initiative, aimed at students between 14 and 18 years old from all over the country, was attended by 460 young people, a number that “exceeded expectations”, according to Hugo André Costa , from the management of Portugal Space, which hopes to double the number of candidates in 2023, the year in which a new parabolic flight will take place.
Imitating the process of recruiting astronauts on a micro scale, the selection of the 30 young people, half of whom are girls, had several stages, including exposition of motivations, tests of perception and interpretation of space, physical condition and interview. After being selected, the “chosen ones” were still required to undergo clinical examinations to obtain the medical fitness certificate required for the flight.
One of the “chosen ones” was Ricardo Martins, 15, from Vila Verde, in the district of Braga. I heard about Portugal Space’s “excellent initiative” on TV before going to school.
He decided to compete, attracted by the space theme, which has always fascinated him “since he was very young”, and stimulated by the stages of the selection process, “all of them challenging and enriching”, as if the selection of astronauts were at stake.
The young man does not pretend to be an astronaut, but “he liked to dedicate himself to aerospace engineering”, inspired by the idea that, just as the Portuguese navigators revealed new worlds during the Age of Discovery, “space and the unveiling of the mystery that surrounds it can once again exalt the name of Portugal”.
He faces Friday’s flight with “great enthusiasm and anxiety” and wants to enjoy it “to the fullest”, see how his body reacts and experience on board.
It was also on television, “at home, with the family”, that Maria Matias Neto, 17, from Vagos, in the district of Aveiro, became aware of the initiative. She caught his eye, she went to find out more, she signed up.
In the end, she was “pretty happy and relieved” when she found out she had been selected. Parabolic flight “is going to be something incredible, an experience that will not be repeated” any time soon.
“I have to make the most of it,” the young woman told Lusa, who took her interest in being an astronaut, which meant being away from her family for a long time, in favor of aerospace engineering.
By promoting “Zero-G Portugal — Astronaut for a Day”, the Portuguese space agency hopes that the 30 young people will be “ambassadors” of the initiative in schools this school year, who will inform and spread the experience they had with their colleagues. and teachers, “helping to cultivate and stimulate interest in space.”
Astronauts also participate in outreach actions when they return from their missions, being one of their job tasks, along with outings into space.
On Thursday, the day before the flight, German astronaut Matthias Maurer, 52, will share his experience at a conference in Beja. Matthias Maurer, an astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA), returned on May 6 after a stay, his first, on the International Space Station, where he carried out various scientific work for six months.
Source: TSF
