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The new Airbus Novespace recreates the conditions of weightlessness through parabolic flights – JEAN-PIERRE MULLER / AFP

MB with AFP

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Novespace, the subsidiary of the French Space Agency organizes for researchers and individuals parabolic flights recreating the conditions of weightlessness, proceeded Tuesday to first scientific flight of its new Airbus A310 “Zero-G.”

“The flight went well. Everyone had the impression that it is more accurate, smoother and easier “than the previous aircraft, A300 was” run its course “after 18 years of service, welcomed the President Novespace and astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA), Clervoy.

31 parabolas each 22 seconds

The new “flying laboratory” provides scientists with space agencies and universities worldwide “access to weightlessness at much lower cost than orbital flights,” said Clervoy on the tarmac of its basic Mérignc Airport. A rate of 31 parabolas 22 seconds each, this represents “about ten minutes of weightlessness cumulative” for each flight he notes.

Novespace acquired Airbus this year latter, for a sum of between 8 and 10 million, revised from top to bottom and furnishings included.

“From the true weightlessness, not a simulation”

To these parabolic flight, the airplane, at a speed of 810 km / h, rears to reach a 47-degree angle. Then the engine thrust is reduced greatly, carefully dosed so that all the forces applied to the aircraft -portance, drag and thrust Engine- cancel. “It is thanks to the quality control, for 22 seconds, one can believe that the aircraft is in a vacuum,” explains Jean-François Clervoy. All passengers and equipment while experiencing “the true weightlessness, this is not a simulation,” insists the astronaut.

But why recreate weightlessness? In several areas (biology, physiology, material science, particle physics, etc.), “it allows to study the effects of small forces that exist on Earth but are masked by gravity,” says the Belgian Pletser Vladimir, head of ESA parabolic flight.

For many onboard experiments, the duration of weightlessness provided by the Zero-G aircraft is sufficient to produce usable results, making it unnecessary travel in space.