The Cullen College of Engineering has once again sent a team of undergraduate engineers up in NASA’s zero-gravity simulation plane, the “vomit comet."
The group consists of Hector Alba, Andrew McClain, Zachary Hoffpauir, James Broussard, Jesus Mora and Jimmy Le, collectively known on the mission as “Team NEO.” NEO stands for Near Earth Objects. The undergraduate team is mentored by former astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, director of the aerospace engineering graduate program at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering as well as the UH STEM Center.
Each year, NASA holds a Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program, which allows undergraduate college students in STEM fields to perform assigned experiments during 25-second bouts of weightlessness on the reduced gravity aircraft. The Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program is intended to increase minority student interest in math and sciences fields.
Team NEO’s experiment is entitled “Characterization of Forces and Mechanisms Required to Separate Material Particle Sizes In Situ at Near Earth Objects (NEO).” NASA has recently included NEOs in its design reference missions, for example, extracting water from NEOs for use in fuel synthesis and life support systems. Processing, however, is problematic for the microgravity environment typical of a NEO, so Team NEO experimented on different mining methods to extract water in these environments.
To read the full press release and learn more about the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program, click here.