Some NEW videos from the second flight can be seen here (1.4 MB) and here (0.9 MB)!


This morning we arrived at Novespace again at 07:00h and started by immediately proceeding to the plane to start the vacuum pump for our experiment. And becaues we had 2 flyers whom had never flown before, we made sure to go through procedures once more before queueing for the medication. Today we will fly to the Mediteranean, which means a longer flight. We left on time today, but still about a half hour into the flight, one team member already needed a toilet. Equipped with a 2-liter plastic bottle, as is procedure on zero g flights where a toilet is not available, the task was accomplished at the back of the plane... during the 1 g phase, of course.

Reviewing computer procedures.

Boarding the plane at 09:00h.

Ground support.

With two first time flyers, we got off to a slow start as team members got accustomed to operating the experiment in microgravity. After a few parabolas though, we had optimized our procedures and managed to get through our entire sample (75 collisions) before the final parabola.

Orange angels at work during microgravity.

Visiting the cockpit during the final parabola.

De-briefing occurred at 15:00h today, after all flyers had a chance to grab lunch. Once again none of our flyers felt ill during the flight and we were able to report excellent results for single dust collisions.

To see another short video taken during the flight, check out the following .MOV file, which is about 6.7 MB

This evening the team will once again analyze the data, make any necessary experiment adjustments, and prepare the samples for tomorrow's flight. Tomorrow it looks like we'll be able to perform the maneuvre over the Atlantic.