Moon Gravity Lab In The Sky - Fly With Lunar Scientists In This Exclusive Mini-Doc
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
A Future Studios Production
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
Transcript
00:00 European scientists are turning an aircraft into a laboratory that simulates lunar gravity,
00:05 and Space.com has taken a ride aboard this plane with them.
00:09 There is only one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still on Earth,
00:14 or rather a few thousand feet above its surface - in a parabolic flight.
00:20 Only parabolic flight can reproduce the Moon and Mars gravity.
00:24 There is no other facilities, other facilities only simulate, but not recreate the real one.
00:32 On board our plane, this is a real gravity field.
00:35 There are a couple of drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity on a very, very
00:39 small scale, but only for a couple of seconds and only for hardware.
00:44 If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity, you have two options.
00:49 You can either come on this aircraft or you can go to the Moon.
00:52 That's it.
00:53 Parabolic flights, best known for producing weightlessness, follow a wild trajectory of
00:58 fast, steep climbs and short, carefully managed free falls.
01:02 During those free falls, objects inside the plane experience either brief spells with
01:07 no gravity at all, or, if the pilot flies the parabola just a little differently, reduced
01:13 gravity.
01:14 We'll fly this aircraft like the aircraft is falling down, but not too much, to keep
01:24 just the gravity we need.
01:26 I mean 0.16 g for Moon gravity or 0.38 g for Mars.
01:34 The French company Novespas, based in the famous winemaking city of Bordeaux, is Europe's
01:39 only operator of parabolic flights and prides itself on their ability to generate lunar
01:45 or Martian gravity conditions with scientific precision.
01:49 In the last week of April, scientists from all over Europe descended upon Bordeaux's
01:55 airport and turned the Novespas plane into a lunar gravity research lab.
02:00 Until recently, there's been more demand for flights that produce weightlessness, but
02:04 with the renewed interest in Moon exploration, spearheaded by the NASA LED Artemis programme,
02:10 the need for artificial Moon-like conditions is on the rise.
02:15 This is the first time that the European Space Agency is doing a full parabolic flight campaign
02:20 in partial gravity, so we do lunar and Martian, because of the request of all the experimenters
02:27 and participants.
02:29 Of course, we are most interested in the lunar environment and lunar partial gravity, because
02:34 this is what will help us to prepare for the Moon exploration.
02:39 Scientists know quite well what no gravity does to human beings and technology, thanks
02:44 to years of research on the International Space Station.
02:48 But they know very little about the effects of the Moon's gravity, which is one sixth
02:53 that of Earth, or Martian gravity, which is a little stronger than one third of Earth's
02:59 gravity.
03:00 We know only very little about the effect of the Moon's gravity or life on the Moon
03:06 on the human being, since we were on the Moon for only a limited period of time.
03:11 And there's an additional factor about it, because we cannot simulate Moon gravity on
03:16 Earth so easily.
03:18 For instance, Badiou's studies, we know they can simulate microgravity, but no one really
03:22 knows what is the right condition to simulate lunar gravity, and neither Mars.
03:27 So we are really in a kind of still black box, where we don't know exactly what the
03:33 human being will be faced to and how he will cope to these conditions on the Moon when
03:38 he stays more than a few days, I would say.
03:41 Each reduced gravity spell during the flight lasts just under half a minute and is preceded
03:47 and followed by 20 seconds of hypergravity when the plane speeds up and steeply rises,
03:53 and then when it recovers from the freefall state.
03:57 During one flight, the plane performs 30 such maneuvers, with only brief periods of steady
04:02 flight in between.
04:04 By carefully analysing what happens with the experiments during these short periods of
04:09 reduced gravity, scientists can gain a better understanding of what might await future Moon
04:15 explorers.
04:17 In this experiment, scientists are filming the behaviour of human immune cells inside
04:23 special containers.
04:25 The researchers know that in weightlessness, immune cells struggle to reach the infection
04:30 site, which makes astronauts more prone to illness.
04:34 Now they want to know whether the same effect occurs in lunar and Martian gravity.
04:39 We have seen at least in this experimental setting that when there is really no gravity
04:43 at all, we have a centralisation of the cell flow in the middle of this flow chamber, so
04:48 it was even, so they were faster and centralised.
04:52 So to get in contact with a vessel wall might be already because of this much harder.
04:59 Yes, and now we are just investigating the same issue in lunar and Martian gravity.
05:05 On board the flight is also a 3D printer that uses a type of plastic mixed with simulated
05:11 lunar dust to print simple tools.
05:15 This is the first time researchers are testing its performance in lunar gravity.
05:20 But the most interesting piece of equipment on board is this vehicle, developed by a team
05:25 of researchers from the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.
05:30 It's called LISA for Lunar Equipment Support Assembly, and it's essentially a lunar wheelbarrow
05:36 that may one day help astronauts on the Moon transport equipment or injured crew members.
05:42 Is it difficult to operate something like this on the Moon?
05:45 It's not really difficult to operate it because it's much lighter, because of the lower gravity,
05:51 but it's more difficult when you have uneven terrain.
05:55 Stevenin and his team created a little obstacle course inside the plane to test three versions
06:00 of LISA during the parabolic flights.
06:03 Here, European astronaut Thomas Pesquet has a go operating LISA in Martian gravity.
06:10 What we want to test is how an operator, an astronaut, let's say, in lunar gravity will
06:18 work, what is the locomotion that will be applied to pull and push this kind of equipment,
06:25 and how the equipment will react over uneven terrain, and how you have to control it.
06:31 This will give us some feedback to improve the next prototype, next generation, and to
06:37 define is it better with four wheels, is it better with three wheels, is it better to
06:41 have one handle, two handles, what would be the best configuration.
06:46 Astronauts train in parabolic flights to prepare for weightlessness, which they experience
06:51 on the International Space Station.
06:54 But the Novespas plane, which is the largest in the world capable of flying parabolic flights,
06:59 could in the future be turned into a sophisticated training ground to prepare astronauts heading
07:05 to the Moon.
07:06 In this experiment, Stevenin and his colleagues perform simple tasks in lunar gravity while
07:12 wearing a virtual reality headset running a simulation of a region near the lunar South
07:16 Pole where future Artemis missions will land.
07:20 In this case, the test subjects move a box of tools that they see in the virtual reality
07:25 simulation, but which is also physically present in front of them.
07:30 In the future, the setup may become more complex and include, for example, the LISA wheelbarrow
07:36 and a physical mock-up of a lunar lander.
07:39 When you wear this headset, the resolution is so high that it's, wow, I'm on the Moon,
07:45 it's very impressive.
07:46 Now, if in addition, what you try to grasp is you have the virtual, the partial gravity
07:53 that is added to the virtual environment, and when you want to move around, you move
07:57 like on the Moon, you are really embedded into it.
08:01 And we are convinced that there is a high potential for astronaut training in the future
08:06 combining these two technologies.
08:10 The Artemis programme expects to land humans on the Moon in 2025.
08:15 By the end of this decade, NASA plans to build a permanent base camp near the lunar South
08:20 Pole that will host crews of four astronauts for up to one month.
08:25 For comparison, the longest of the Apollo-era landings 50 years ago lasted barely three
08:32 days.
08:33 [Music]
08:39 [Music]
08:42 (whooshing)