Purdue University has announced plans for a special suborbital science mission “Purdue 1” on Virgin Galactic's next-generation space plane 2027 year. This flight, will carry five people, chosen from university representatives for suborbital research.
The crew will consist of aerospace engineering professor Stephen Collicott, graduate student Abigail Mizzi and three university graduates. Collicott will lead the mission and continue to investigate the behavior of liquids in microgravity, for which he received a grant from the NASA Flight Opportunities program in 2021 year. Mizzy will also study the fluctuations of liquids in weightlessness, which has applications for spacecraft systems and future missions. One seat in the plane will be used for scientific equipment, and the rest of the crew will finance their places themselves or receive support from the university.
Among the graduates, Jason Williamson has already been announced, Senior Vice President of the Dunaway Engineering Company, who joined the Virgin Galactic program after joining the SpaceShipTwo flights in New Mexico. Two other graduates will join later.
The mission will last close 90 minutes, with a few minutes of microgravity for real-time experiments, which will allow the research to be adapted on the fly. The flight will take place from Spaceport America in New Mexico on the new Delta Class space plane.
Although “Purdue 1” will be the first full university crew for commercial suborbital research, scientists have already flown on similar missions. Example, in 2023 Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute and Kelly Gerardi of the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences conducted experiments on Virgin Galactic, a u 2024 2018 by Rob Fehrle of the University of Florida — on Blue Origin's New Shepard. These flights were described as intense due to the limited time of weightlessness.
The partnership emphasizes the accessibility of space for education and science, allowing students and researchers to go beyond Earth's laboratories. Purdue University, known as “astronauts' lullaby” with 28 graduates, that flew into space, including Neil Armstrong, sees the mission as the beginning of a new era for the aerospace industry. Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses, also a graduate of Purdue, noted, What it demonstrates, how commercial platforms put scientists and students at the center of discovery.
Source: https://spacenews.com