The first parabolic flight made in Portugal, with 30 young people on board, was successfully performed this Friday from Beja Air Base, where it landed at 12:02 am, about two hours after takeoff.
The flight was promoted by the Portuguese space agency Portugal Space, as part of the “Zero-G Portugal – Astronaut for a Day” initiative, which aims to arouse young people’s interest in space.
The plane in which the young people followed, an Airbus A310, owned by the French company Novespace, which operated the flight over the Portuguese coast, in a reserved airspace, performed take-off and free-fall maneuvers (parabolas) that allowed to simulate the absence of gravity in it during short cycles, during which the passengers felt so light that they could do somersaults in the air without being able to exert control.
Parabolic flights are practically the only means on Earth that can reproduce the effect of the absence of gravity or microgravity, which only exists in space and is felt only by astronauts.
The young people, students between 14 and 18 years old, are selected after qualification tests and receive a participation diploma after landing.
Aboard the plane performing the maneuvers at Monte Real, German astronaut Mattias Maurer, who returned on May 6 from a six-month mission, the first, of the International Space Station, which he called “cosmic kiss,” followed for ” love of space”.
The flight also allowed passengers to feel the effect of gravity on Mars and the moon, as well as the hyperactivity where people feel heavier to the point that they can’t even lift an arm when lying on the ground.
In total, the plane of the company Novespace performed 16 parabolas (one more than planned at the request of the young people), which together formed about seven minutes of microgravity effect, including 20 seconds of Martian gravity and 40 seconds of lunar gravity.
Dozens of relatives of the youths watched the take-off and landing of the airbus A310 in a hangar at the airbase near the runway.
Source: DN
