Team Super-Hydro tests experiment on NASA’s “Weightless Wonder”

Team Super-Hydro successfully completed their experiment aboard NASA’s “Weightless Wonder” aircraft after two flights April 26 and 27.

The team of seven engineering and chemistry students returned to NASA for the second year in a row to participate in the Microgravity University Systems Engineering Educational Discovery (SEED) program. The program gives undergraduate students the opportunity to design, build and fly experiments in reduced gravity aboard the “Weightless Wonder.”

NASA mentors were assigned to each team to design and build experiments based on current NASA research. The “Weightless Wonder,” a microgravity aircraft, produces periods of weightlessness for up to 25 seconds at a time by executing a series of approximately 30 roller-coaster-like parabolas over the Gulf of Mexico. During the free falls, the students gather data in the unique environment that mimics space.

See how the experiment works.

The NNU team consists of Dorothy Ackerman (Great Falls, Mont.), Kevin Halle (Edmonds, Wash.), Chad Larson (Medford, Ore.), Darrell Leber (Lake Stevens, Wash.), Keith Moilanen (Brush Prairie, Wash.), Weston Patrick (Wasilla, Alaska) and Grady Turner (Nampa, Idaho).

Halle and Turner flew on Thursday, April 26 with NASA mentor Greg Pace; Ackerman, Larson and Patrick flew on Friday, April 27 with Dr. Lawrence.

More information on Team Super-Hydro can be found on their blog here.