MICROGRAVITY FLIGHT TEAM
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Welcome to the Oregon State Microgravity Flight Team homepage! The team is excited to return for the 2008-2009 school year. The latest research project will be posted shortly after the fall term begins.
>> LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CURRENT EXPERIMENT.
INTRODUCTION TO THE C-9
AND PARABOLIC FLIGHT
This C-9 is also called the "Vomit Comet". The plane produces weightlessness by following a parabolic vertical flight path. The aircraft heads upward at a angle of 45 degrees. As soon as the pilot begins the rotation into the parabolic trajectory, weightlessness is achieved. This lasts all the way "up-and-over the hump", until the craft reaches an declined angle of 30 degrees. At this point, the craft has lost a significant amount of altitude, and must begin to pull into a hard upward turn. The forces are then roughly twice that of gravity on the downward path, along the bottom most portion of the parabola, and during the upward path. This increased gravity lasts until the aircraft is again half way up the upward trajectory. The pilot then initiates the zero-g parabola.
>> FOR MORE INFO, WATCH THIS NASA VIDEO