A 3-axis stabilisation platform to improve experiment conditions in parabolic flights

There are different ways of providing free-fall conditions on Earth in order to test a component, perform an experiment or demonstrate equipment before it can be included in a space mission. One of these options is a parabolic flight: briefly, the aircraft flies on a parabolic trajectory with the on-board payload experiencing several seconds of weightlessness. These flights have been performed since the 1950s to simulate space conditions for experiments as well as astronaut training. The project objective is to develop a cubical platform to perform 3-axis attitude stabilisation for experiments during the microgravity phase of a parabolic flight. The goal is to stabilise the platform and thus reduce perturbations and vibrations that diminish the quality of the microgravity achieved. To do so the attitude control system, composed of three reaction wheels in orthogonal configuration, will counterbalance the disturbances measured by the attitude determination system, an inertial measurement unit. The platform will be tested using a small aircraft in a self-organised flight campaign. Comprising nine students, this project is currently in the preliminary design phase. However, the prototyping and testing of the platform structure has already been initiated using a small-scale design and several hardware components have been ordered. The platform will be printed using additive manufacturing due to the numerous benefits of this process. The component integration is expected to be completad in time in order to facilitate the laboratory testing of the various subsystems before the flight campaign in May 2022. After the flight campaign, the collected data will be analysed, processed and published to ensure that it is accessible to the scientific community.