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. Одне місце в літаку віддадуть під наукове обладнання, а решта екіпажу самі фінансуватимуть свої місця або отримають підтримку від університету.
Серед випускників уже анонсовано Джейсона Вільямсона, старшого віцепрезидента інженерної компанії Dunaway, який приєднався до програми Virgin Galactic після долучення до польотів SpaceShipTwo у Нью-Мексико. 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, бачить у місії початок нової ери для аерокосмічної галузі. Президент Virgin Galactic Майк Мозес, також випускник Пердью, відзначив, What it demonstrates, how commercial platforms put scientists and students at the center of discovery.
Source: https://spacenews.com