New student-designed research and demonstration drop tower
Abstract
A new drop tower has been designed and constructed at Portland State University. The ap-proach incorporates innovative features to increase throughput and microgravity quality in a highly public facility. Push button operation with full wireless CCTV coverage and passive magnetic deceleration provides quiet, safe operation from a single control station with low re-cycle time. A two-stage coaxial release mechanism decouples the payload from the drag shield to minimize disturbances to the experiment during release. This is especially important for fluids experiments that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. Performance of the new tower is presented including release, free fall, and deceleration accelerometer data. The two second tower is used for research and educational outreach. The research efforts focus on capillary flows and phenomena relevant to spacecraft fluid systems. The outreach efforts utilize partnerships with local primary, secondary and post-secondary institutions to promote the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
- Publication:
-
38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010cosp...38.3630L