Small Facilities for Microgravity Experiments (from Science to Design to Conduct to Results)
- Paper number
IAC-07-A2.5.08
- Author
Mr. Rogier Schonenborg, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Vlada Stamenkovic, Switzerland
- Coauthor
- Coauthor
Karel Buier, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Andreas Diekmann, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Ms. Merlijne Berntsen, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Year
2007
- Abstract
As probably the only space agency in the world, ESA has an established program that allows scientific experimental activities on board the International Space Station proposed by university students* that for the purpose of the implementation will serve for a limited time in the fully professional ESA environment. The paper gives an overview of almost 10 experiments that have been conducted on the ISS over the past four years in the scope of the aforementioned program and shows how this has been realised. Naturally not all experiments will be covered in as much detail, focus will be put on the more interesting ones that somehow had a large impact and where lessons can be learnt. The dedicated experiment hardware, that largely has been developed in house at relatively low cost for the specific scientific experiment, will pass the revue and the scientific requirements and engineering implementations will be highlighted. Attention will be paid also to qualification and acceptance testing, testing of the scientific experiment protocol, operations, as well as to problems that have been encountered in the past as well as solutions to these problems. The various aspects that may be encountered when developing experiment hardware for the ISS will be addressed and it will be shown how these aspects drive the configuration of the experiment hardware and determine the complexity, cost and development time. It is hoped that conclusions and solutions will benefit others that struggle with similar problems as have been encountered by the project team. It shall be noted that the paper is based on experience with relatively small experimental packages and that the observations should not be extrapolated to large payloads. * up till masters level or equivalent, which excludes PhD students
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-A2.5.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.