European scientists are turning an aircraft into a laboratory that simulates lunar gravity to prepare astronauts and technology for future moon landings as part of the NASA-led Artemis missions.
The moon is a strange little world. Only about 1.2% the mass of Earth, our planet's companion exerts a much weaker gravitational force on objects on its surface than the parent planet. As a result, an astronaut on the moon's surface feels as if he or she only weighs one sixth of their earthly weight. The same goes for all equipment the astronauts would use. It may sound like no big deal but this feeble gravitational pull creates all sorts of unforeseen problems that are difficult to prepare for in research labs on Earth. There is, however, one way to experience lunar gravity while still in the confines of Earth and explore these challenges before going to the moon: in a parabolic flight.
Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: European Space Agency/Novespace/NASA
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The moon is a strange little world. Only about 1.2% the mass of Earth, our planet's companion exerts a much weaker gravitational force on objects on its surface than the parent planet. As a result, an astronaut on the moon's surface feels as if he or she only weighs one sixth of their earthly weight. The same goes for all equipment the astronauts would use. It may sound like no big deal but this feeble gravitational pull creates all sorts of unforeseen problems that are difficult to prepare for in research labs on Earth. There is, however, one way to experience lunar gravity while still in the confines of Earth and explore these challenges before going to the moon: in a parabolic flight.
Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: European Space Agency/Novespace/NASA
A Future Studios Production
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TechTranscript
00:00European scientists are turning an aircraft into a laboratory that simulates lunar gravity,
00:05and Space.com has taken a ride aboard this plane with them.
00:09There is only one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still on Earth,
00:15or rather a few thousand feet above its surface, in a parabolic flight.
00:20Only parabolic flight can reproduce the Moon and Mars gravity.
00:24There is no other facilities, other facilities only simulate, but not recreate the real one.
00:32On board our plane, this is a real gravity field.
00:35There are a couple of like drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity on a very
00:39very small scale, but only for a couple of seconds, and only for hardware.
00:44If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity, you have two options.
00:49You can either come on this aircraft, or you can go to the Moon.
00:52That's it.
00:54Parabolic flights, best known for producing weightlessness, follow a wild trajectory of
00:58fast, steep climbs and short, carefully managed free-falls.
01:03During those free-falls, objects inside the plane experience either brief spells with
01:08no gravity at all, or, if the pilot flies the parabola just a little differently, reduced gravity.
01:15We'll fly this aircraft like the aircraft is falling down, but not too much, to keep
01:24just the gravity we need.
01:26I mean 0.16 g for Moon gravity, or 0.38 g for Mars.
01:34The French company Novespas, based in the famous winemaking city of Bordeaux, is Europe's
01:40only operator of parabolic flights, and prides itself on their ability to generate lunar
01:45or Martian gravity conditions with scientific precision.
01:50In the last week of April, scientists from all over Europe descended upon Bordeaux's
01:55airport and turned the Novespas plane into a lunar gravity research lab.
02:00Until recently, there's been more demand for flights that produce weightlessness.
02:05But with the renewed interest in Moon exploration, spearheaded by the NASA-led Artemis programme,
02:10the need for artificial Moon-like conditions is on the rise.
02:15This is the first time that the European Space Agency is doing a full parabolic flight campaign
02:20in partial gravity.
02:21So we do lunar and Martian, because of the request of all the experimenters and participants.
02:29Of course, we are most interested in the lunar environment and lunar partial gravity, because
02:34this is what will help us to prepare for the Moon exploration.
02:39Scientists know quite well what no gravity does to human beings and technology, thanks
02:44to years of research on the International Space Station.
02:48But they know very little about the effects of the Moon's gravity, which is one-sixth
02:53that of Earth, or Martian gravity, which is a little stronger than one-third of Earth's gravity.
03:00We know only very little about the effect of the Moon's gravity or life on the Moon
03:06on the human being, since we were on the Moon for only a really limited period of time.
03:11And there's an additional factor about it, because we cannot simulate Moon gravity on
03:16Earth so easily.
03:18For instance, bed rest studies, we know they can simulate microgravity, but no one really
03:23knows what is the right condition to simulate lunar gravity, and neither Mars.
03:27So we are really in a kind of still black box, where we don't know exactly what the
03:33human being will be faced to and how he will cope to these conditions on the Moon when
03:38he stays more than a few days, I would say.
03:41Each reduced gravity spell during the flight lasts just under half a minute, and is preceded
03:47and followed by 20 seconds of hypergravity when the plane speeds up and steeply rises,
03:53and then when it recovers from the freefall state.
03:57During one flight, the plane performs 30 such manoeuvres, with only brief periods of
04:02steady flight in between.
04:04By carefully analysing what happens with the experiments during these short periods of
04:10reduced gravity, scientists can gain a better understanding of what might await future Moon
04:15explorers.
04:17In this experiment, scientists are filming the behaviour of human immune cells inside
04:23special containers.
04:25The researchers know that in weightlessness, immune cells struggle to reach the infection
04:30site, which makes astronauts more prone to illness.
04:34Now they want to know whether this same effect occurs in lunar and Martian gravity.
04:39We have seen, at least in this experimental setting, that when there is really no gravity
04:43at all, we have a centralisation of the cell flow in the middle of this flow chamber, so
04:48it was even faster and centralised.
04:52So to get in contact with a vessel wall might be, already because of this, much harder.
05:00Yes, and now we are just investigating the same issue in lunar and Martian gravity.
05:06On board the flight is also a 3D printer that uses a type of plastic mixed with simulated
05:11lunar dust to print simple tools.
05:15This is the first time researchers are testing its performance in lunar gravity.
05:20But the most interesting piece of equipment on board is this vehicle, developed by a team
05:26of researchers from the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.
05:30It's called LISA for Lunar Equipment Support Assembly, and it's essentially a lunar wheelbarrow
05:36that may one day help astronauts on the Moon transport equipment or injured crew members.
05:42Is it difficult to operate something like this on the Moon?
05:46It's not really difficult to operate it because it's much lighter, because of the lower gravity,
05:52but it's more difficult when you have uneven terrain.
05:55Stevenin and his team created a little obstacle course inside the plane to test three versions
06:01of LISA during the parabolic flights.
06:03Here, European astronaut Thomas Pesquet has a go operating LISA in Martian gravity.
06:10What we want to test is how an operator, an astronaut, let's say, in lunar gravity
06:17will work, what is the locomotion that will be applied to pull and push this kind of equipment,
06:25and how the equipment will react over uneven terrain, and how you have to control it.
06:32This will give us some feedback to improve the next prototype, next generation, and to
06:37define is it better with four wheels, is it better with three wheels, is it better
06:41to have one handle, two handles, what would be the best configuration.
06:46Astronauts train in parabolic flights to prepare for weightlessness, which they experience
06:51on the International Space Station.
06:54But the Novespas plane, which is the largest in the world capable of flying parabolic flights,
06:59could in the future be turned into a sophisticated training ground to prepare astronauts heading
07:05to the Moon.
07:07In this experiment, Stevenin and his colleagues perform simple tasks in lunar gravity while
07:12wearing a virtual reality headset running a simulation of a region near the lunar south
07:17pole where future Artemis missions will land.
07:20In this case, the test subjects move a box of tools that they see in the virtual reality
07:25simulation, but which is also physically present in front of them.
07:30In the future, the setup may become more complex and include, for example, the LISA wheelbarrow
07:36and a physical mock-up of a lunar lander.
07:40When you wear this headset, the resolution is so high that it's, wow, I'm on the Moon,
07:45it's very impressive.
07:46Now, if in addition, what you try to grasp is you have the virtual, the partial gravity
07:53that is added to the virtual environment, and when you want to move around, you move
07:58like on the Moon, you are really embedded into it.
08:01And we are convinced that there is a high potential for astronaut training in the future
08:06combining these two technologies.
08:10The Artemis programme expects to land humans on the Moon in 2025.
08:15By the end of this decade, NASA plans to build a permanent base camp near the lunar south
08:20pole that will host crews of four astronauts for up to one month.
08:26For comparison, the longest of the Apollo-era landings 50 years ago lasted barely three
08:32days.