Mesland D, Paris D, Huijser R, Lammertse P, Postema R
Microgravity Payload Projects Division, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
ESA Bull. 1995 May;82:7 p..
One of ESA's aims is to provide the microgravity research community with various microgravity exposure facilities. Those facilities include drop towers, sounding rockets, and parabolic flights on board aircraft, in addition to orbital spacecraft. Microgravity flights are usually achieved using large aircraft like the French 'Caravelle' that offer a large payload volume and where a person can be present to perform the experiments and to participate as a human test-subject. However, the microgravity community is also very interested in a flexible, complementary facility that would allow frequent and repetitive exposure to microgravity for a laboratory-type of payload. ESA has therefore undertaken a study of the potential of using a 'ballistocraft', a small unmanned aircraft, to provide a low-cost facility for short-duration (30-40 seconds) microgravity experimentation. Fokker Space & Systems performed the study under an ESA contract, supported by Dutch national funding. To assess the ballistocraft, a simple breadboard of the facility was built and flight tests were performed. The ability of the on-board controller to achieve automated parabolic flights was demonstrated, and the performance of the controller in one-g level flights, and in flights with both zero-g and partial-g setpoints, was evaluated. The partial-g flights are a unique and valuable feature of the facility.
欧洲航天局（ESA）的目标之一是为微重力研究界提供各种微重力暴露设施。这些设施包括落塔、探空火箭、飞机上的抛物线飞行，以及轨道航天器。微重力飞行通常使用像法国“快帆”这样的大型飞机来实现，这种飞机提供较大的有效载荷空间，并且可以安排人员在机上进行实验并作为人体试验对象参与。然而，微重力研究界也对一种灵活的补充设施非常感兴趣，这种设施能够让实验室类型的有效载荷频繁且重复地暴露于微重力环境中。因此，欧洲航天局开展了一项关于使用“弹道飞行器”（一种小型无人驾驶飞机）为短期（30 - 40秒）微重力实验提供低成本设施的潜力研究。福克空间与系统公司根据欧洲航天局的合同开展了这项研究，并得到了荷兰国家资金的支持。为了评估弹道飞行器，建造了该设施的一个简易实验模型并进行了飞行测试。展示了机载控制器实现自动抛物线飞行的能力，并评估了该控制器在1g水平飞行以及具有零重力和部分重力设定点的飞行中的性能。部分重力飞行是该设施一项独特且有价值的特性。
