Abstract
Aircraft parabolic flights provide repetitively up to 20 s of reduced gravity during ballistic flight manoeuvres and are used to conduct short microgravity investigations in Physical and Life Sciences and Technology, to test instrumentation and to train astronauts before a space flight. Their use is complementary to other microgravity platforms, such as drop towers, sounding rockets, automatic orbital capsules and the International Space Station, and preparatory to space missions. Since 1997, parabolic flights in Europe are performed with the Airbus A300 'Zero-G', the world largest aircraft for this research activity. ESA campaigns are organized at a rate of two campaigns per year, usually in spring and autumn. Depending on their sizes, 12 to 14 experiments can be accommodated per campaign. ESA has organized 21 microgravity research campaigns on the Airbus, with a total of 275 experiments in various fields such as plasma physics, dust particles, material sciences, fluid physics, and heat transfer. The ESA aircraft parabolic flight programme, the Airbus A300 'Zero-G' aircraft and the safety and medical aspects of experiment operations during parabolic flights are presented. Some results from Physical Sciences experiments flown in previous ESA parabolic flight campaigns are highlighted. Keywords: Microgravity research, Parabolic Flights, Physical Sciences
